As the U.S. has become more clear-eyed about seeing Beijing as its primary geopolitical rival, it has at times expressed concern about Sino-Israeli cooperation, a subject Mosaic has covered extensively. The Jewish state has generally acquiesced when its most important ally has asked it to avoid certain dealings with China. But, write Nathan Picarsic and Jonathan Schanzer, America has not always followed its own advice:
Recently, Israel rejected a bid by the state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation to build a light rail system. In a bizarre twist, CRRC is now more welcome in the United States thanks to a decision by the Biden administration to remove it from a list of Communist Chinese military companies.
The Israelis announced last month that CRRC lost the tender to build the green and purple lines of Tel Aviv’s light rail system. CRRC may be the largest rolling-stock company in the world, but it is also a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Its extensive ties to the People’s Liberation Army prompted the Trump administration to list it among the Chinese companies into which U.S. investors would be prohibited from investing.
It appears that the White House needs to reexamine its China policies. But not the Israelis. Indeed, one might have expected Israel simply to shrug and accept the CRRC bid. It did not. . . . Israel has admittedly not fully aligned its China policy with the United States. But as the CRRC episode reveals, the U.S. still has a long way to go in aligning with itself.
Read more on FDD: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2022/02/24/anti-china-for-thee-but-not-for-we/