In the rhetoric of Iran’s ayatollahs, the United States is the “Great Satan” while the Jewish state is the “Little Satan.” The Chinese Communist Party seems to have adopted a similar approach during the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas, writes Tuvia Gering:
China often portrays the U.S. as biased against the Palestinians, while positioning itself as the ideal mediator in regional conflicts. Indeed, China did contribute a balanced voice in the early days of the Gaza conflict, based on statements from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and state media. As the operation intensified, however, China began to criticize Israel, but, strangely enough, Israel was almost never mentioned. The U.S. was the main target of their polemics, as if it were bombing Palestinians.
China made it clear that it saw the military operation as an opening to tarnish the international image of its strategic rival, who also happens to be Israel’s most important ally. American claims that China perpetrated crimes against humanity and genocide against Muslims in Xinjiang made the Israel Defense Forces’ actions in Gaza the ideal battering ram for Beijing’s [propaganda].
[Moreover], Chinese criticisms were laced with anti-Semitic overtones. During the operation, an English-speaking presenter from China Global TV Network made egregiously anti-Semitic statements, claiming, among other things, that “Jews dominate [U.S.] finance, media, and Internet sectors.” Chinese diplomats active on Twitter have often shared anti-Zionist and at times anti-Semitic posts.
Former Chinese ambassadors to Israel would frequently declare, “there is no anti-Semitism in China.” Even if this were true in the past, it is no longer the case; such remarks are regularly broadcast on national platforms, not to mention the thousands of anti-Semitic articles and comments posted daily on personal blogs and popular nationalist sites. They instill hatred of Jews and the Jewish state in a new generation of Chinese people and contribute to the spread of global anti-Semitism.
Read more on Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security: https://jiss.org.il/en/gering-chinas-biased-role-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/