Gaza Is China’s New Wedge Issue to Split US From Global South
- Beijing criticizes US for sending weapons to the conflict
- Both sides have stepped up efforts to grow influence abroad
Children stand by a crater at the site of a building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah, on May 8.
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Last week, a top Chinese diplomat took to the microphones at the United Nations to harangue the US for blocking a resolution that would have backed Palestinians’ bid for membership, saying it had “shattered the decades-long dream of the Palestinian people.”
The broadside by Ambassador Fu Cong may have just looked like more anti-US rhetoric. But US officials and experts say it fits into a pattern with greater significance — an increasingly active Chinese effort to turn opinion in developing countries against the US since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, using the Gaza war as a wedge.