Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his call for the establishment of a Palestinian state that is a “full member” of the UN before Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday in Beijing, local media reported.
Xi already defended this position in December in Saudi Arabia, but this new call comes at a time when Beijing seeks to consolidate its role as a mediator in Middle East conflicts.
Chinese diplomacy, which facilitated the spectacular rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, affirms that it wants to make its contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, stalled since 2014.
“China supports Palestine becoming a full member of the UN,” Xi said in a meeting with Abbas, according to Chinese public television CCTV.
“The fundamental solution to the Palestinian question involves the restoration of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty, based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Xi said.
Abbas, 87, is in Beijing until Friday.
Receiving Abbas at the monumental Palace of the People in Beijing, Xi said that China “has always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.
“Faced with the major changes (…) that the world is facing and the new developments in the situation in the Middle East, China is willing to strengthen coordination and cooperation with the Palestinian side to promote a quick solution, comprehensive, just and lasting resolution of the Palestinian issue,” he stressed.
strategic partnership
“Today we will jointly announce the establishment of China-Palestine strategic partnership relations,” that is, an enhancement of diplomatic ties, Xi noted.
This is the fifth official visit by Mahmud Abas to China.
President Xi visited Saudi Arabia in December on a regional trip, where he also met Abbas and called for “working for an early, just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue.”
China has good relations with Israel and defends that the solution to the conflict is to have two states.