China on Wednesday hosts a litany of Arab dignitaries and diplomats in Beijing to deepen ties with the region and present a \u201ccommon voice\u201d on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
\nBeijing has sought to build closer ties with Arab states in recent years, and last year brokered a detente between Tehran and its long-time foe Saudi Arabia.
\nIt has also historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
\nAnd Beijing last month hosted rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah for \u201cin-depth and candid talks on promoting intra-Palestinian reconciliation.\u201d
\nEgypt\u2019s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as well as a host of other regional leaders and diplomats, are among the delegates attending the forum.
\nPresident Xi Jinping is set to deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony on Thursday, Beijing has said, aimed at building \u201ccommon consensus\u201d between China and Arab states.
\nTop of the agenda will be the war between Israel and Hamas, which Xi has called for an \u201cinternational peace conference\u201d to resolve.
\nChina sees a \u201cstrategic opportunity to boost its reputation and standing in the Arab world\u201d by framing its efforts to end that conflict against US inaction, Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa Program, said.
\n\u201cThis, in turn, serves Beijing\u2019s focus on undermining the US\u2019s credibility and influence in the region,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThe longer the war, the easier for China to pursue this objective,\u201d he added.
\nOn Tuesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with counterparts from Yemen and Sudan in Beijing, saying he hoped to \u201cstrengthen solidarity and coordination\u201d with the Arab world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China on Wednesday hosts a litany of Arab dignitaries and diplomats in Beijing to deepen ties with the region and present a \u201ccommon voice\u201d on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Beijing has sought to build closer ties with Arab states in recent years, and last year brokered a detente between Tehran and its long-time …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23499,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23494\/revisions\/23499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}