China's Future Is RADICAL. The West Has No Idea What's Coming | Sheng Zhang

China’s foreign policy toward the Middle East is not a monolith but a living negotiation among competing historical memories, economic imperatives, and young activists’ moral fervor. The conversation captured at the Kyoto University symposium makes clear that Beijing’s posture—long read as cautious, nonaligned, and primarily transactional—is fraying along multiple fault lines. Pressure from public opinion, diplomatic frictions with regional partners, and a generational turn inside China are producing a foreign policy that looks simultaneously more principled and more combustible. The result is a China that can no longer simply sidestep the political liturgies of the region; it is being pulled into strategic commitments that may soon force harder choices with Washington and with Middle Eastern states alike. ## Two Competing Traditions in Chinese Foreign Policy At the heart of China’s Middle East dilemma lie two durable foreign-policy traditions: the Maoist emphasis on revolutionary solidarity and anti-imperialism, and the Dengist preference for economic pragmatism and nonalignment. The Maoist inheritance treated Palestine and other anti-colonial struggles as moral missions tied to China’s own revolutionary identity. This was more than rhetoric; historical acts—like early recognition of Palestinian representation—were signals that China saw security and legitimacy in solidarity with frontier struggles. The Dengist turn reframed diplomacy as subservient to development: “serve the interests of our economy, not vice versa.” Under this logic Beijing diversified relationships across the Middle East, normalized ties with Israel, and prioritized trade and technology transfers that would fuel domestic modernization. But as the conversation at Kyoto underscored, Dengist caution never entirely eclipsed Maoist memory. Instead, these two logics coexist uneasily inside the state, producing policy ambivalence: trade and investment with Gulf monarchies and Israel on the one hand; political sympathy, rhetorical solidarity, and ties with Iran and Palestine on the other. ## Xi Era: Active Mediation and Contradictions Under Xi Jinping, China has stepped out of the strict Dengist noninterventionist shell into more visible political engagement. Beijing has started to criticize U.S. policies in the region, defend allies at the United Nations, and even mediate between adversaries—most visibly between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and among Palestinian factions. This marks a departure from the previous emphasis on “don’t pick sides” and “just trade,” suggesting Beijing’s growing appetite to be seen as a stabilizing power with diplomatic heft. Yet this newfound activism exposes a central contradiction: China’s political alignments increasingly run counter to its economic interdependence. The Gulf states—Saudi Arabia and the UAE—are indispensable sources of energy, finance, and investment. Israel has become a notable technological and trade partner. Simultaneously, Beijing’s political posture tends to tilt toward Iran and the Palestinian cause. Managing these overlapping and sometimes opposing networks is China’s defining diplomatic headache. The transformation under Xi therefore deepens the dilemma rather than resolving it: a more assertive China plays a larger political role, but that very assertiveness makes the balancing act more perilous. ## Gaza: Public Opinion, Bureaucratic Friction, and the Haifa Dilemma The Gaza conflict revealed how dissonant voices within China—state ministries, diplomats, and a highly engaged public—can produce mixed signals. Officially, the foreign ministry has been cautious, avoiding the loaded term “genocide” for the violence in Gaza. Yet other organs of the state apparatus, including the State Council Information Office, have used harsher language blaming U.S. complicity. Such differences expose institutional pluralism rather than unitary messaging. Public sentiment has been decisive. Young people, in particular, have embraced a potent blend of Maoist memory and contemporary outrage. Online imagery, poetic metaphors, and grassroots campaigns—often permitted and sometimes implicitly encouraged by officials—have animated pro-Palestinian sentiment at a scale that matters. Chinese diplomats with strong social media profiles have amplified this mood; incendiary analogies comparing Israeli conduct to historical fascism have generated diplomatic fallout with Western capitals. Practical consequences followed. Chinese commercial exposure in Israel—most prominently the Haifa port concession—has become a strategic and political embarrassment. Investments thought to be stable now sit inside a theater of military risk and diplomatic recrimination. Trade volumes with Israel, which had been climbing, began to fall as regional instability and maritime insecurity hit supply chains. The Haifa case demonstrates the tragic materiality of symbolic politics: moral alignment with Palestine collides with sunk commercial interests in Israel, and public passions constrain Beijing’s room to maneuver. ## Iran: Strategic Depth, Trade Entanglements, and a Reassessment China’s ties with Iran illustrate the wider pattern of political affinity and economic entanglement. Beijing has institutionalized relations with Tehran through strategic partnerships, long-term agreements, and multilateral initiatives that aim to break Iran’s diplomatic isolation. Before the recent round of fighting, Chinese policymakers were cautious: Iran’s prior military performances and internal volatility made Beijing wary of open endorsement. But the dynamics shifted after Iran reasserted itself in the region in ways that surprised many observers. The conversation pointed to a clear reassessment: Iranian resilience—militarily and politically—has elevated Tehran’s standing in Beijing’s calculus. Where China once feared supporting a potentially collapsing regional ally, it now sees Iran as a durable partner whose regional role can serve anti-U.S. balancing interests. This has led to tangible shifts: Chinese votes in the UN that shield Iran, renewed trade flows (including energy purchases and civilian supplies), and possibly transfers that blur the line between civilian and military utility. That said, Iran’s relationship with the Gulf complicates matters for Beijing. Territorial disputes involving islands in the Gulf have put China in the awkward position of signing communiqués that Gulf states interpret as tacit recognition of their claims—actions that Tehran views as betrayal. Iranian domestic voices, including influential conservative outlets, have publicly rebuked Beijing, asking whether Chinese policymakers grasp the geopolitics at stake. These tensions highlight a brittle diplomacy: China’s attempt to be a neutral connective tissue among rivalries is increasingly tested by zero-sum symbols and territorial sensitivities. ## Generational Politics, Boycotts, and the Limits of Neutrality Beyond bureaucratic maneuvering, an ascendant generation within China is changing the moral grammar of foreign policy. Young activists, artists, and internet communities are reviving Maoist tropes—anti-imperialism, solidarity with liberation struggles—and repurposing them in the social-media era. The emotional intensity of these movements constrains official options: censorship is uneven, and at times state actors tacitly condone expressive acts that align with broader geopolitical narratives. This generational politics also changes the calculus around boycotts and economic signaling. Consumer-led and culturally driven boycotts can become de facto foreign-policy tools when domestic sentiment stigmatizes trade partners or foreign brands. Beijing faces a novel problem: balancing economic diplomacy while allowing socially driven actions that complicate business relations. The state’s inclination toward “strategic patience”—waiting out crises while preserving core interests—may succeed only so long as public fervor do

China's Future Is RADICAL. The West Has No Idea What's Coming | Sheng Zhang China has avoided alliances, but what the United States is doing to Iran and Palestine leaves Beijing little choice. The Dengists are losing internally and this is giving way to a whole new wave of Maoists inside the Chinese political system. They are young, (fashionable,) and they are done with trying to appease US imperialism. Kyoto University Symposium 2026: "Geopolitics in the Time of Monsters" Presentation 8: Sheng Zhang Sheng Zhang examines the competing traditions shaping China’s Middle East policy, contrasting Maoist solidarity with Dengist economic priorities. Using Palestine and Iran, he explores Beijing’s political commitments, trade relationships, public opinion and diplomatic constraints. He argues that regional conflict is challenging China’s balancing strategy and strengthening Iran’s strategic importance. The discussion considers boycotts, Gulf investment, energy security, generational differences and strategic patience, asking what might push Beijing toward a clearer position as regional power shifts and tensions with Washington deepen. Sheng's Links: Sheng's Article on China-Iran Relations: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/991335 Association for Global Political Thought profile: https://globalpoliticalthought.hsites.harvard.edu/people/sheng-zhang Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 China’s competing foreign-policy traditions 04: 43 Xi Jinping and the Middle East 06:37 Gaza and Chinese public opinion 13:43 Trade with Israel and the Haifa dilemma 15:48 Iran, Gulf trade and diplomatic tensions 18:54 War and China’s reassessment of Iran 28:57 Discussion: boycotts, Gaza and Gulf investment 44:11 Energy, younger generations and strategic patience #Sheng Zhang Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming. And today I'm going to have a brief presentation about how to understand Chinese foreign policy toward the Middle East, especially using the case of Palestine and Iran as examples. So the first thing is that I would argue that if we need to understand Chinese foreign policy, there's a lot of ambiguity in it. And why is that? It's because actually the Chinese government system is much more diverse than many people realize it is. And I believe that mostly we can very vaguely draw two major traditions influencing Chinese foreign policy today. And the first one is the Maoist tradition, and the second one is the Dengist tradition. So by talking about Maoist tradition, specific to the Middle East as a region, you can see that during the Mao era, the focus of Chinese foreign policy was to support revolution abroad and support anti-imperialist struggles. -- 1 of 17 -- And specifically to Palestine, Mao paid a lot of attention to Palestine. And he saw this as particularly important. And China was the first country among the permanent five members that opened a Palestinian embassy. We did that prior to the Soviet Union. And that was regarded as Mao's attempt to compete with the Soviet Union as the leader of the anti-colonial movements of the world. And there was this particularly important quote in 1965 when Mao Zedong was meeting with the Palestinian delegation to Beijing, and he was telling them that China is in the rear of the global struggle against imperialism, while Palestine is in the frontier. And so he connects China's own security with Palestine's security. And this vision, you can still see that partially in Chinese foreign policy today. I put this quote of Wang Yi, who is the Chinese foreign minister, and he says, "The world will never be in peace unless the Middle East is in peace." And it's a quite interesting dynamic. We see that this is, I would say, a case that the Chinese are still influenced by Mao and Zhou Enlai's idea about how our security is closely related to what is happening in the Middle East. And those are the children's books from the Cultural Revolution period. The main characters are Palestinian kids who are fighting against the Israelis, and they draw the paintings according to the Chinese imagination, but also according to China's own experience, the way in which we basically used the Boy Scouts in the war against Japanese aggression. And another tradition, another important tradition, is the Dengist tradition after the Chinese economic reform. And so, like, I put this photo here because, like, Deng Xiaoping never abandoned Palestine. He did not. But the thing is that he started to diversify China's relationship with every single country in the region. And starting with Deng Xiaoping, the idea was that, first, Deng Xiaoping has this very famous quote: Chinese diplomacy should serve the interests of our economy, not vice versa. So we should not do things that are hurting our economic development, because he thinks that economic development of China is the most important thing for China at this moment. And at the same time, like, I mean, driven by that, that's the reason why, like, we eventually recognized Israel in the 1990s. And in the early 2000s, we started to buy a lot of military technology from Israel because we were, like, sanctioned by the United States, where the Israelis were willing to sell some advanced technology during that time to China. So the Chinese started to be, in terms of trade, very close to Israel. But politically, the support for Palestinian liberation was not dropped. And regarding China's foreign policy to the Middle East in general, the main idea is that the Chinese believe that this is a region that is way too complicated in terms of religion and ethnicity, and we don't want to get into it. So the Middle East has been seen as a really marginalized area of Chinese foreign policy. And the Chinese just want to trade with everyone, but we don't want to pick a side in anything that we don't want to pick a side on. So we want to stay out of political issues and not comment too much on the -- 2 of 17 -- internal affairs in the region. So that comes to the Xi Jinping period. And in the Xi Jinping period, a lot of things are changing. In terms of the largest difference between the Xi Jinping period and the traditional Dengist period, you find China started to comment on political issues. Like when Assad was there, for example, the Chinese were shielding Assad in the UN voting, and the Chinese started to criticize US engagement in the region more, and the Chinese started to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and also mediate among the different Palestinian factions, most importantly Fatah and Hamas. And those things are the things that, in the Dengist period, we would have never done. So that means there's a large shift. But still, at the same time, the Chinese still don't want to really pick a side, don't want to go back to a full-on Maoist tradition. So we're still trading with Saudi Arabia, trading with Israel, while politically we're still close to Iran and Palestine. And I would say that this is the largest contradiction, or existing problem, of Chinese diplomacy today, is that we're economically dependent on U.S. allies in the region. Not dependent, but economically we're extremely overlapping with U.S. allies in the region, mostly the Gulf. Israel is a smaller trade partner, but the Gulf states are the major trade partners of China. Well, politically, we're very closely allied with Iran and the Axis of Resistance. And I think that that's the main difficulty we have to solve in the next few years. So yeah, I would say that's the largest problem, and I will go to each case to talk about that in detail. Okay, so the first example is that we talk about Gaza. Talk about what is the Chinese reaction to the Gaza genocide. And so politically, after the war broke out, actually, I put this quote particularly here because Ma Xingming, he's a very high-ranking official. He's a Chinese representative to The Hague. And he literally said in The Hague that we do not see what happened on October 7th as an act of terrorism because they see that as a form of armed struggle. So it's very different from what we often hear from the West. So I put this quote here. And a very interesting thing is that this report on human rights violations of the United States in 2024, this is published by the State Council Information Office of China. It's not published by the foreign ministry because the Chinese foreign ministry never used the word genocide to describe what is happening in Gaza. And I think that's because of their consideration, not only because of their relationship with Israel, but also the Russians are also not using that term, genocide. So I think that's part of the reason why the Chinese were hesitating. But in the State Council report, which has Chinese and English versions, they used the word genocide. They said, "Oh, the United States is serving as an accomplice of Israel in the genocide of Gaza." So that, again, shows you the diversity among the different Chinese ministries. While the foreign ministry seems to be more conservative or cautious, at the same time, some other ministries are already saying things quite clearly in support of the armed struggles of Palestine or in support of the anti-Israeli activities. #Pascal -- 3 of 17 -- Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. #Sheng Zhang Right. And public opinion in China, overall, is overwhelmingly pro-Palestine. We have some issues in academia in particular because a lot of academics are Western-trained and Western-educated, and they tend to be more pro-US. But the young people are extremely pro-Palestine. And what is happening is that the young people started to turn back to the intellectual tradition of the Maoist period to learn about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And they created a bunch of things. I put this one in particular because it has a... So this painting is painted by a Chinese young internet painter, and it's comparing what Israelis are doing in Gaza to what the Japanese did in China during World War II. And there's a quote here that says, "Why I speak for Palestine: because I see China in the past." And why is this painting so important? Because the Chinese consul general to Osaka tweeted this thing on his Twitter. He's, again, a very high-ranking official, and I don't know if you saw, I think our Japanese friends in this room would already know this guy because his tweets are very interesting, very wild, and he tweets a lot of things. But on the Gaza thing, he tweeted this painting to compare Israeli actions to the fascist Japanese actions during World War II. And guess what? Like one year later, after he tweeted this thing, he did something even more interesting. He directly compared Israel to Nazi Germany in his tweets. And I'm gonna quote him. So what I'm gonna say right now is a quotation, so don't cancel me for that. So he said, quote unquote, he said, "The only difference between Israel and Nazi Germany is that Nazi Germany treats the United States as its enemy, but Israel treats the United States as its ATM." End quote. So that's the official tweet of the Chinese consul general to Osaka. And of course, the Americans are extremely angry about this thing. So the current U.S. ambassador to Japan actually called this Chinese colleague, quote, "an untrained puppy shouting to people." So I was like, wow, amazing degree of diplomacy, right? It's sad that we're living in the time of the masters, that diplomacy's gone. This thing really shows, within the Chinese government, there is this sense of implicit encouragement of pro-Palestinian sentiment. And also, if you look at