OBOR’s impact on Sino-Israeli relations

Until the turn of the twenty-first century, Israel had enjoyed years of close military-technological collaboration with China. But then Israel was forced under uncompromising American pressure to abort this relationship. The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a series of vacillations in Israel- China relations, and their drastic decline. However, in 2011 Beijing, already becoming recognized as a rising world power, changed its approach to Israel and left its grievances behind. Israel, facing growing political-economic pressure by European countries related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and increasing tension with the US administration, sought a more independent path to China. 1 Concurrently, as US-China tension remained high, and Israel’s dependence on the US had not become lighter, both Jerusalem and Beijing realized that the only way for them to strengthen their relations was to shift their focus to economictechnological areas. Besides substantiating Israel’s intention to forge stronger relations with the rising world power, such a shift also served both states’ economic interests. Israeli companies searched for a bigger share of the Chinese market while China saw Israel as source of innovative technologies and a market for its construction companies. 2 Indeed, since the first decade of the twenty-first century Chinese construction companies have been increasingly involved in Israel’s transportation and other infrastructure projects.