What China hopes to achieve in the Middle East through Hamas-Fatah talks?

Leaders of Hamas and Fatah, Palestine’s two main political factions, announced their readiness to unite after decades of dispute during a much-publicised meeting in China earlier this week.

By signing the "Beijing Declaration”, the two parties agreed to end historic political divisions and strengthen Palestinian "national unity”.

The summit in Beijing also included 12 other Palestinian factions, as part of the China-led reconciliation efforts that began with an initial yet inconclusive meeting held in Beijing in April.

While questions persist about the reliability and sustainability of the significant deal, which could mean Palestinians finally have a strong and united leadership, it’s China's role as peacemaker that has drawn global attention.

“The Middle East serves as a microcosm of [what] the new order China offers,” Diren Dogan, a visiting fellow in international relations at Oxford University, tells TRT World.

Following its role in facilitating an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023, two nations with a long-standing rivalry, China’s involvement in efforts to achieve Palestinian unity—potentially as a precursor to a two-state solution with Israel—could further solidify its emerging role as a reliable mediator.

Dogan explains that the Asian country’s outreach to the Middle East, which began in late 2022 with efforts to establish new partnerships with countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, was significant.

“It aimed to involve regional leaders in what it termed the ‘Chinese Century’. However, the outbreak of the Israel-Palestine conflict disrupted this process,” Dogan adds.

Not just humanitarian

Experts note that China’s involvement in the Palestinian issue is driven by humanitarian concerns and pragmatic considerations.

“It is the largest trading partner of the Middle East and the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil… it seeks partnerships rather than alliances in the region,” Degang Sun, professor and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University, tells TRT World.

While China’s Middle Eastern policy once sought economic benefit, putting aside political entanglements in the early 21st century, Sun says that the country shifted its regional policy and is now ready to “project not only its hard economic power but also its soft diplomatic power”.

Stabilising the Middle East is crucial for China, particularly given its investments in the Belt and Road Initiative, the billion-dollar global infrastructure project which links the Asian nation to the rest of the world via the Middle East.

The Asian giant’s continued influence in the Middle East could lead to further shifts in global power dynamics or at least seal its role as a major player in the region. Finding a solution to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict may just be the way.

Deep-seated rift

A unified Palestinian leadership is a crucial step toward achieving peace and ideally ending Israel's genocidal war in Gaza, which has persisted for over 10 months and claimed almost 40,000 lives, and the 76 years of illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

However, achieving this unity has been proven challenging due to deep-seated differences between the factions.

Fatah, the main faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has held partial control over the Palestinian territories in the occupied West Bank since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Hamas, a political organisation with an armed resistance wing Qassam Brigades, has governed Gaza since 2007 after winning legislative elections in 2006.

While the Fatah-led PLO is the only group that has been allowed to represent the Palestinian people at the United Nations since 1974, when it was conferred observer status under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, Hamas has long been dismissed as a "terrorist group" by some members such as the UK, US, and Canada.

The rift between these two predates the elections, resulting in an armed conflict in 2006, and is primarily rooted in political and ideological differences.

Over the years, both factions have repeatedly sought to reconcile and unify their struggle against the Israeli occupation. But despite meetings mediated by several heads of state since 2006 in cities such as Istanbul, Moscow, Mecca, Cairo, Beirut, and Doha, these efforts have consistently failed.

The meeting in Beijing earlier this April marked a new attempt at unity, which is considered by some as potentially more hopeful than previous attempts because China is viewed as “a more reliable and neutral, less partisan” proponent than the US or Europe, according to Richard Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

Falk, a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine, told TRT World that China’s supportive stance on Palestinian statehood creates stronger incentives for a cooperative approach.

“It induces both sides to be more respectful toward the Beijing Declaration that sets forth the terms of the agreement reached,” he adds.

US decline, China’s rise?

The new declaration says a temporary unified leadership framework based in Ramallah will be established in the upcoming term.

This will help move the Israel-Palestine negotiation process away from being predominantly under US control, says Dogan.

Many believe that the American administration has lost credibility due to its unwavering support for Israel and its inability to influence an end to the bloody war since October 7. But its declining image goes back even further to the 1990s Gulf War, says regional expert Dogan.

China has capitalised on this diminishing image to publicly critique America, and its failure to find a viable solution to the persistent Israel-Palestine conflict is a continuation of this decline.

China's influence now is all the more significant: “If Palestine can establish its own unity and integrity and repair internal divisions, it can stand on its own, even if the US continues to support Israel,” Dogan tells TRT World.