A storehouse of weapons captured and secured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the war underscores China’s interests in the Middle East. And those interests do not align with Israel, news publisher and author Joel Rosenberg told American Family Radio on Friday.
The IDF recently showed Rosenberg its store of 18,000 weapons taken from Lebanon-based and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Some were made in Russia or Iran. Most of them were made in China.
“It was clear from the markings on them,” Rosenberg told show host Jenna Ellis.
“So these are weapons that are literally being used to kill Israelis or attack Israelis. And they're coming from China. They're coming from Russia. They're coming from Iran," he said. "We can’t think of the Middle East as somehow isolated. We don't have to (just) talk about how the great nuclear superpowers are funding, fueling, arming Iran in its seven-front war against Israel. It's a very serious issue."
China’s relationship with Israel is a complex one and has evolved over time. It established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1991. Since then, there’s been trade and some military cooperation.
H
owever, China has been a consistent supporter of Palestinian causes going as far back as the 1960s.
During the war with Hamas, China has been a strong ceasefire advocate, emphasizing the protection of civilians and the need for a political settlement to the Palestinian question.
China, like Russia, has reiterated support for a two-state solution on a number of occasions.
“The fundamental reason for the current situation of the Palestine-Israel conflict is that the Palestinian people’s lawful national rights have not been guaranteed,” Zhai Jun, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, said weeks after the Hamas attack in 2023.
“China has turned against Israel since Oct. 7 and we’ve really got to raise the alarm bells on this,” Rosenberg said.
He also addresses the threat in his recently released fictional novel, “The Beijing Betrayal.”
China is a problem in and of itself. What makes it more dangerous is its blooming relationship with Iran, Rosenberg said.
“What you've got is one of the most dangerous countries on the planet, China, building an alliance with one of the other most dangerous countries on the planet, Iran," Rosenberg warned. "And of course, Russia has an alliance with both of them.”
China and Iran signed a 25-year agreement with Iran in 2021 with goals of strengthening their economies, military and security.
The China-Iran agreement
China pledged to invest $400 billion in Iran annually in exchange for a steady supply of discounted oil, gas and petrochemical products.
However, the agreement stops short of China deploying troops to Iran, a China scholar writes.
The threat is real, not fiction, Rosenberg says.
U.S. President Donald Trump gets it, and that’s why he spent so much more time addressing the China-Taiwan question than addressing Israel-Hamas during his recent speech before both chambers of Congress.
“The China that President (Richard) Nixon made overtures to and tried to make peace with 50 years ago is not the China of today. The Communist Chinese Party today is one of the most dangerous forces on the planet, and they are moving in multiple directions,” Rosenberg said.
Trump understands China, and the tariffs he’s placed on China have multiple goals, Rosenberg said.
One is to slow China’s influence in the Pacific, to dissuade it in matters such as the Panama Canal, but Trump is also trying to send a message to American businesses.
“He’s sending a signal to American companies that it’s time to come home, it’s time to leave China. It’s time to build in America,” Rosenberg said.
More than 8,500 U.S. companies are operating in China. All the big names are there – Apple, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, McDonalds, Walmart and more.
By comparison there are roughly 5,000 Chinese-owned companies operating in the U.S.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed China’s threat not only to Israel but to the U.S. earlier this year.
"If we stay on the road we are on right now in less than 10 years, virtually everything that matters to us in life will depend on whether China allows us to have it or not,” said Rubio, citing blood pressure medicine, movies and all manner of life in between. “That’s an unacceptable outcome.”
Trump is the first U.S. president to seek to reverse this course, but his plate is full with Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas not to mention domestic issues, Rosenberg said.
Trump senses this, and his much-replayed Oval Office warning about the potential of World War III to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not hyperbole, he added.
Xi Jinping and China’s communist leaders covet Taiwan and are actively planning an invasion. Their timetable would have been moved up had Kamala Harris been elected president in the U.S., Rosenberg said.
World War III not just a talking point
“Trump has thrown a monkey wrench in their military machine and planning,” he said.
An embarrassed Vladimir Putin, if he thinks he’s been undermined in Ukraine, plus Iran’s very close realization of nuclear warheads to use against Israel, and the China question, could have the world on the verge of conflict like it’s never seen.
“President Trump is actually trying to defuse World War III from erupting, a nuclear war on multiple fronts. He knows that communist China has nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles, and that they are an evil imperialist nation,” Rosenberg said.
