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Abstract

On January 24, 1992, Israel and China established official diplomatic relations. But in fact, the two countries have already had more than 10 years of military cooperation to build on. When the People’s Liberation Army started looking for an opportunity to upgrade its military strength and capabilities, the natural decision was to turn to Israel in order to import high quality military equipment. This cooperation started in the late 1970s, more than 10 years before China and Israel established the diplomatic relations. This cooperation has been going on for more than 30 years and even though the China-Israel bilateral diplomatic relations have been growing ever more firmly, the military cooperation between the two countries has been gravely influenced by a third country- the U.S.

In spite of the established political relations and the coming out into the open of the military relationship, China and Israel found themselves involved in two arms sales related incidents: the first one is the cancellation of the Phalcon airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) that occurred in 2000; the second is the 2005 cancellation of the upgrade of an already sold Harpy Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) system while the equipment was already in Israel. Both of these incidents occurred due to the intervention of the U.S. As a result of the enormous pressure that was brought upon the military cooperation between Israel and China, both of the deals were canceled and Israel had to pay compensation for the breaking of the already signed contracts.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, whether it was economy, politics or military wise, the U.S. became the world’s sole superpower, and also Israel’s biggest, strongest and most supportive partner. Although today it is hard to imagine, the U.S. and Israel’s strong relationship began only in the 1960s. The turning point was during the Six-Day War, also known as the Third Middle East War; the U.S. strongly supported the Israeli side, among other reasons because of the pressure that was put on the U.S. government by American Jewish Interest groups that started gathering momentum during that time.

The early 1990s' disintegration of the Soviet Union as well as the 1989 Tiananmen incident had a great effect on the U.S.-China relations. In response to the Tiananmen incident, the U.S. imposed severe sanctions on China, which included an arms embargo. Even though after a while the U.S. has lifted some of the economic sanctions and restored the economic relations between the two countries, till this day the arms sales and weapons import limitations have remained in place. In spite of this, at first the military cooperation between China and Israel wasn’t affected. During 1995-6 China and the U.S. have been engaged in the Taiwan Straits Crisis, which directly contributed to the restriction of arms sales to China, especially from Israel. However, Israel failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the Taiwan Straits Crisis and the arms embargo that followed.

From the moment that Israel announced the Phalcon deal in 1999 the U.S. started applying pressure in order to hinder the upcoming sale. Although Israel reminded the U.S. that it was aware of the deal beforehand and even gave its permission, the U.S. government refused to let Israel proceed with the sale. In 2000, after the U.S. threatened Israel with severe sanctions, Israel had no choice but to cancel the Phalcon deal with China and pay 250 million dollars in compensation fees.

Surprisingly, the cancellation of the Phalcon deal did not have a massive effect on the Israeli-Chinese relations, perhaps because China blamed the U.S., and not Israel, for the cancellation. In 2004 China sent back for repairs and upgrading the Israeli developed Harpy Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle. The Harpy was purchased by China during 1994 and delivered to the mainland in 1999.

According to the contract signed between the two countries, when needed, China can send the Harpy back to Israel for repairs and upgrading. However, when the Harpy arrived to Israel, the U.S. has raised an objection for the continuation of the deal, for the second time in a four year period. As opposed to the Phalcon incident, this time the U.S. Ministry of Defense decided to take action and cut all communication related to military cooperation between Israel and the U.S. At the end, as part of the efforts to solve and restore U.S. trust, Israel had to accept the resignation of Defense Ministry Director General Amos Yaron. Even though it was never confirmed, this was one of the U.S. Ministry of Defense’s main demands. The Harpy incident was a major blow to the Chinese-Israeli military cooperation, and caused a rift that has not been healed to this day.

The third chapter discusses the two incidents and the U.S. intervention method. Moreover, the chapter includes the economic aid sanctions that the U.S. threatened to impose on Israel if it does not comply with the given demands. The U.S. used its power and influence in order to hinder and cut off the long standing military cooperation between Israel and China. Ironically, the Israel-China relation began from military cooperation and it was this fruitful cooperation that caused harm and a permanent standstill in the other aspects of the relationship.