Chinese President Xi Jinping this week provided a lesson in how to get the maximum international gain by doing the bare minimum. In his speech at the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, he said the Israel-Gaza war “should not continue indefinitely” and “justice should not be absent forever.”
Considering that he didn’t even mention a time limit, these remarks were hardly groundbreaking. Yet they stand in such stark contrast to Western positions on the conflict that they make one thing clear: in the long run, one of the few winners that will emerge from the Gaza crisis is China.