China's Middle East Game

China is making a spectacular debut on the world's diplomatic stage. The Chinese diplomatic service

has already completed negotiating a deal between Israel and Palestine. Talk about a win-win for China. Talk about a win-win for China:

• China looks good where we look like perennial failures. 

• Despite our media's heroic efforts we are hated throughout the region and successful completion of a deal gives us less justification for being in the area. 

• The pressure on China's Middle East oil artery would be greatly relieved.

• China's world stature would skyrocket.

The negotiations that we will see reported will be real enough; there are plenty of devilish details still to be arm-wrestled over. But the principles are agreed and Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas are in Beijing to look everyone in the eye, reaffirm their commitment to the deal, and shake hands on it. 

That either side is willing to proceed based on China's four points is rather astonishing. Read them and you'll see why:

• The right direction to follow should be an independent Palestinian State and peaceful co-existence of Palestine and Israel. To establish an independent state enjoying full sovereignty on the basis of the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital is an inalienable right of the Palestinian people and the key to the settlement of the Palestinian question. At the same time, Israel's right to exist and its legitimate security concerns should also be fully respected.

• Negotiation should be taken as the only way to peace between Palestine and Israel. The two sides should follow the trend of the times, pursue peace talks, show mutual understanding and accommodation, and meet each other half way. The immediate priority is to take credible steps to stop settlement activities, end violence against innocent civilians, lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip and properly handle the issue of Palestinian prisoners in order to create the necessary conditions for the resumption of peace talks. Comprehensive internal reconciliation on the part of Palestine will help restart and advance the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

• Principles such as "land for peace" should be firmly upheld. The parties concerned ought to build on the existing achievements that include the principle of "land for peace," the relevant UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative to advance the Middle East peace process across the board.

• The international community should provide important guarantee for progress in the peace process. Relevant parties of the international community should have a greater sense of responsibility and urgency, take an objective and fair position, make vigorous efforts to encourage talks for peace, and increase assistance to Palestine in such fields as human resources training and economic development.

The Chinese are patient people and their patience is paying off.  China has the best diplomatic service team on earth and they've been working on a Middle East solution for at least 10 years with their co-guarantors, the Saudis (remember that the new king's first state visit was to China).  This will be a very big deal indeed.
For more: 

News: Abbas and Netanyahu on separate China visits