On November 17, the UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing a US-led interim governing authority and “International Stabilization Force” in Gaza. China and Russia strongly objected to its denial of Palestinian self-determination but opted to abstain rather than veto.
Prior to the vote, the US had secured public endorsements from a wide coalition of Arab and Muslim governments including the official representatives of the State of Palestine, while threatening a “return to war” if its draft resolution was not passed as written.
China and Russia’s consequent decision to withdraw their competing draft, and abstain rather than vetoing Resolution 2803, has caused considerable disquiet within the Palestine solidarity movement for reasons that are understandable given the moral urgency of the moment.
Many critics also assert that China’s abstention, and its reform-era foreign policy generally, indicate a sharp rupture with its Mao-era support for Palestinian liberation. In fact it’s broadly consistent with the principles that have guided China’s foreign relations since 1949.
China’s cardinal foreign policy principle is mutual non-interference in internal affairs. This means engaging with other internationally recognized governments irrespective of their social character, popular legitimacy (or lack thereof), or geopolitical alignment vis-à-vis the US
In keeping with this principle, the PLO has been recognized as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” by China since 1965 and by the UN since 1974. This is formalized via the State of Palestine internationally and the Palestinian Authority domestically.
Palestinian civil society and resistance groups rightly condemn the PLO in its current form as unfit for purpose, having been captured by Mahmoud Abbas’ collaborationist wing of Fatah. But they challenge his personal claim to authority, not the PLO’s institutional legitimacy.
All resistance groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP officially aim to reform and democratize the PLO as a national unity government, not to abolish or replace it. China has acted to facilitate this process considerably through the 2024 Beijing Declaration.
Thus no alternative entity even claims to speak for the State of Palestine in international forums like the UN. Caught between the PLO’s endorsement of the US plan and resistance groups’ vocal objections, China opted to abstain in keeping with its non-interference principle.
This did not represent a dramatic break with Mao-era policy as many claim. As we explained in this article, China consistently advocated for cross-factional unity within the PLO when it was the only major power materially assisting the armed struggle: https://www.qiaocollective.com/articles/palestine-china
In 1973 China condemned the erasure of Palestinian self-determination and lack of consultation on UNSC Res 338 which aimed to end the October War. But it abstained in the face of a joint Western/Soviet/Arab-comprador fait accompli, allowing the resolution to pass 14-0.
Until 1971 in fact, the PRC (like today’s Palestinian resistance) was denied a voice at the UN entirely in favor of the US-backed comprador regime on Taiwan. The USSR boycotted the Security Council in protest, allowing the US to secure UN backing for its 1950 invasion of Korea.
While the boycott proved tactically ineffective, no one believed a Soviet veto would have deterred the US-led aggression – least of all the Korean and Chinese forces that dealt it a world-historic military defeat, as the Palestinian people surely will with Trump’s scheme.
UN disapproval alone has never meaningfully restrained US or Zionist imperialism. Nor can the imprimatur of UN approval create facts on the ground that two years of unrelenting genocide in Gaza, or three years in Korea, manifestly failed to achieve in the face of armed resistance
China’s longstanding, self-imposed diplomatic constraints are by no means exempt from principled, good-faith critique both inside and outside the country. Nor do they bind the Palestinian resistance or the international solidarity movement in either thought or action.
But the question of relaxing those constraints in favor of a more militant anti-imperialism is ultimately a sovereign matter for the Chinese people to decide, just as Palestine’s people have the final say in exercising their rights to self-determination and armed struggle.