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Netanyahu’s Trip to China Risks Further Alienating Washington
Published 08/04/23
Dov S. Zakheim
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is a clever man. He has successfully put together six governments and is his country’s longest-serving prime minister. He has managed to insult an American president — Barack Obama — and still somehow was able to have that president grant his country, in 2016, a massive 10-year assistance package worth $38 billion. But in planning a trip to China, Netanyahu may be too clever by half.
If there is one issue these days that unites Americans, and politicians of both parties, it is hostility toward China. Even those who would favor maintaining both political and business relations with the Asian giant view Beijing with unreserved suspicion. Yet Netanyahu — having failed for months to obtain an invitation to a White House visit, the first time in decades that an Israeli prime minister has been unable to receive one shortly after being elected — has announced that he will visit with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in mid-October.
After holding off for months, President Biden finally announced that he will be meeting with Netanyahu at last, though the date and venue have yet to be determined. All that National Security Council spokesman Adm. (Ret.) John Kirby was prepared to say about the meeting is that it would take place “later this year.” The Israeli prime minister surely knows that a visit to China prior to having confirmed a date for a meeting with Biden would signal to the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, that Beijing’s influence in Jerusalem — and indeed, in the entire region — remains on the rise.
At the same time, the trip would offer yet another indication that despite its massive aid to the Jewish state, American influence may be waning in Israel and throughout the region.
That Israel’s prime minister has failed to obtain a warm welcome to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and has looked instead to receive one from Beijing, stands in sharp contrast to past relationships among the three countries. Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was especially close to President Bill Clinton and frequently visited the White House. He certainly maintained a relationship with China, but it came nowhere near that he had with the United States.
One of Rabin’s closest aides once told me that when Rabin visited Beijing, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin asked him if he had been invited to Washington. Rabin said he had been hosted recently at the presidential mansion. Zemin then inquired if Rabin expected to be invited another time and the Israeli prime minister said he certainly would be. An astonished Chinese president then asked how often Rabin got to visit the White House. Rabin replied that he would visit a few times each year. At that point, Jiang reportedly asked, “Can you get me an invitation?” How times have changed.
America long has had issues with Israel’s close ties with China. Beginning in the 1980s, Washington and Jerusalem clashed over proposed Israeli sales of advanced military equipment to Beijing, and over Israel’s rather loose control of dual-use technology exports to China. While Jerusalem finally tightened its technology transfer policies, the Pentagon in particular continues to look with suspicion upon Israeli technological cooperation with China. Nor has Washington been pleased with the level of Chinese investments in Israel, which exceeded $12 billion from 2010 to 2021, and much of which was directed at high-tech development.
Netanyahu has insisted that he has been keeping Washington fully informed about his planned visit, and that he will continue to apprise the Biden administration of his meetings with senior Chinese officials. Netanyahu is not known to adhere to all his promises, however. Whether he indeed will keep the Biden team fully informed remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the trip is viewed in Israel and in the region as nothing less than Netanyahu’s thumbing his nose at the United States. Leading Israeli analysts are calling the trip a “serious mistake” and “a step that will harm Israeli interests.” Some Israeli officials have termed the trip a “dangerous risk.”
Nevertheless, none of these cautions is likely to dissuade the Israeli prime minister, who has portrayed himself as the man who knows what is best for Israeli security. Even the prospect that he could alienate not only U.S. congressional Democrats, who are deeply troubled by his machinations to undermine the Israeli Supreme Court, but also Republicans, who have long supported him but who are overwhelmingly hostile toward China, does not seem to daunt Netanyahu.
Having outmaneuvered his domestic opponents for decades, and increasingly dismissed the growing resentment of both Democrats and American Jews toward his expansionist policies on the West Bank, perhaps Netanyahu thinks he can outsmart America once more. And perhaps he will yet again, but in cozying up to Xi Jinping, he risks playing with an American fire that he ultimately may find he cannot extinguish.
Dov S. Zakheim is senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chair of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s board of trustees. He is a former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense.