China Palestine Pact [UPSC Current Affairs]

China established a Strategic Partnership with Palestinian authorities during a visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Beijing in June 2023. This is a significant development with respect to the geopolitics of West Asia and would have an impact on the rest of the world as well. Know more about this development from an IAS exam perspective in this post.

China Palestine Pact

The move by China to sign a Strategic Partnership with Palestine is one of the several initiatives by China to increase its political and economic influence in the West Asian region where it is competing with the United States of America to bolster its position.

• The move is seen in the context of the need for energy resources and a market for exporting military and civilian goods to West Asia.
• China is also promoting its version of the authoritarian government with a tacit partnership with Russia to challenge the West-led democratic order.
• Historically China has been maintaining diplomatic ties with Palestinian authorities for a long time. China also appointed a special envoy to meet Israeli and Palestinian officials.
• However, the experience of China in the region is limited to construction, manufacturing and other economic projects.

Also read: India – China relations

What is Strategic Partnership? 

A ‘Strategic Partnership’ is an understanding between two or more states about the nature of threats they face and the collective view to mitigate the threat they face.

• Strategic Partnership is not an alliance between states which involves deeper relations and the states are duty-bound to help another state when a potential threat materialises.    
• It will also involve regular meetings or informal talks at a high, ministerial and bureaucratic-military official level and can discuss a broad range of topics including technology, the state of the relationship, strategic views, etc.
• The relationship can also manifest into material and physical dimensions where there can be a role of the buyer-seller relationship between the states in terms of armaments and high technology, military training, exchange between subject matter experts, assistance to the position of the other in global forums to an extent, etc.
• Thus the strategic relation involves mutual benefits and the relation is generally not directed against any other adversary state or group of states. 

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