Chapotraphouse

You're reducing complex geopolitical economy to moral abstractions. That is idealism, not material analysis. In material terms we must look at who wields economic power, who sustains whom, and what the objective effects of policies are, not just rhetorical labels like “support” detached from underlying forces.

First, trade figures show China is far from Israel’s largest overall economic partner. The European Union collectively is Israel’s biggest trading partner and investor, with two-way trade far exceeding that with China, and the United States close behind as a top buyer of Israeli exports and major source of arms and aid. Even at its peak, China’s goods trade with Israel has lagged EU and U.S. trade by a tens of billions. This undercuts any simplistic assertion that China “kept Israel’s economy afloat.” In objective material terms, the core economic sustenance of the Zionist entity (particularly in military and strategic sectors) comes from U.S. military aid and deep EU investment, not Chinese commerce. The U.S. alone supplies billions annually in military financing and decades of cumulative assistance, dwarfing what trade volumes ever could.

Second, China’s engagement with Israel historically centered on goods imports and technology exchange, not the strategic military-industrial entanglement that the U.S. maintains. China imported Israeli tech components and sold consumer and industrial goods, this was not tantamount to subsidizing Israeli military, such as how the U.S. does through direct financing, arms sales, and joint defense programs. That is a key material distinction: trade in goods does not equal direct military support.

Third, because China understood the material logic of maintaining leverage and strategic space, it has taken concerted steps that undermine key Israeli economic advantages, such as aggressively promoting synthetic and lab-grown diamonds instead of natural stones (hitting a major sector of the Israeli economy) and cultivating alternatives to Israeli or Western software and tech dominance. These are strategic moves that weaken the Zionist entity’s economic rents, not bolster them.

Fourth, China’s broader Middle East policy must be understood dialectically. China purchased over 90% of Iran’s oil exports helping them bypass sanctions, provided advanced defensive and satellite technology that materially increased Iran’s capacity to resist U.S./Israeli military pressure, and brokered regional normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is not symbolic “support”; it is material backing of states opposed to Zionist and U.S. imperialist aims. China’s trade with Israel existed alongside, and was in my opinion very much overshadowed by, its substantial strategic backing of Iran and the axis of resistance.

Fifth, material conditions show economic warfare alone on Israel would be materially ineffective absent damaging its key backers. Israel’s economy and war machine are sustained predominantly by U.S. military aid and deep EU economic ties. Even if China had unilaterally cut trade earlier, without the collapse of those major partners, the structural economic base of the Zionist state would remain intact.

Finally, openly hostile confrontation with Israel by China, beyond pragmatic criticism and measured pressure, risks serious regional escalation. Israel is a U.S. client state with deep military integration into U.S. regional architecture; an overt break would risk drawing in U.S. strategic responses and destabilizing broader anti-imperialist projects in the region. The material balance of forces does not support unilateral isolation of Israel by China alone without risking wider conflict. That risk is not something to be ignored in strategy.

China’s engagement with Israel was a contradictory policy driven by economic and strategic interests. Its trade never equated to primary economic support comparable to U.S. military aid or EU investment. China’s material support for Iran and other resistance forces, its moves to undercut Israeli economic advantages, and its avoidance of outright military confrontation all reflect real power dynamics. Simplifying this to moral binaries ignores the underlying imperialist structures that actually sustain the Zionist state.

Type 69 tanks for Iraq <-> Type 69 tanks for Iran

It's all very dialectical