War: China vs. US on the Israeli issue

China, which has been very cautious about confronting the US on international politics, goes aggressive in response to the Israeli issue.

It's been said on various conferences that I've been on regarding the Chinese policy that they rarely confront the United States on anything, not to mention international terror politics. Curious about this issue – I've been trying to follow the newspapers that I read to see if I'll be able to spot some direct political confrontation between the Chinese and the Americans on the media.

I quickly came to the conclusion that I'd have to try and follow that on international media, since Israeli media rarely refers to Chinese politics on anything but economics. But today, while I was driving my car and listening to the news that all Israeli radio channels broadcast by the hour, one of the first headlines was about the uprising superpower China going head to head against the US about their policy regarding the war in Israel-Lebanon.

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Haaretz.com quotes :

"China demanded Thursday morning that Israel apologize for the death of a Chinese UN observer in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Three other observers – an Austrian, a Canadian, and a Finn – died in the air strike.
"We are completely shocked by the incident and strongly condemn it," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that Yehuda Haim, Israel's ambassador to Beijing, was summoned to the foreign ministry office Wednesday and asked to apologize both to China and to the victim's family.
An Israeli embassy official said the ambassador expressed his "profound regret" at the incident and promised it would be investigated.
"Israel does not target UN observers," the official said. "Many things can happen in this kind of situation, some of them sad," he added.

And now – the Chinese response

The policy statement, which carries less weight than a resolution, was weaker than one proposed by China and other nations, after more than a day of negotiations and objections from the United States, which wanted to make sure Israel was not directly blamed for the attack.

China, expressing frustration at the delay, earlier warned the United States that its opposition to the statement could jeopardize UN negotiations on a resolution ordering Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment. One of the peacekeepers killed on Tuesday was Chinese.

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… and that was the subtle version of the Chinese response. BTW – The issue was discussed on the following radio show for about 30 minutes, with opinions about China's – and I quote – "sudden care for human life". I didn't like that whole discussion, but Israelis are very sensitive right now.

So, the Chinese are now issuing warnings to the United States, eh? and Israel is in the middle of it all, with one big mess.

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Other posts on the war going on in Israel can be found here: The missile era ; a country gone made ; Israeli confusion,