The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as Viewed by Senior CICIR Analyst Niu Xinchun

"Where there is military occupation and military control, there will definitely be armed resistance. This is the most fundamental cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

China’s official response to Hamas’s recent attack on Israel has been to condemn “acts that harm civilians” and “that escalate the conflict and destabilise the region”, while re-emphasising the need to “restart the peace talks” and “implement the two-state solution”. Reactions from China’s establishment intellectuals have been more interesting.

Today’s edition is a lightly edited translation of a commentary by Niu Xinchun (牛新春), director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) – a particularly influential think tank linked to China’s Ministry of State Security. For those of you who may wish to dig a little deeper, I have recommended six further reactions from Chinese analysts at the end of this post.