Israel’s war with Gaza has exposed China’s impotence

Only last week, China was pushing itself forward to be the regional eminence grise in the Middle East, the powerbroker driving renewed Palestine-Israeli peace talks. In August this year, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi said that Chinese-mediated detente was driving a ‘wave of reconciliation’ in the Middle East. China’s inflated sense of its influence in the region came to a juddering halt in the light of the horrific attacks on Israel by Hamas militants last weekend.