Donald Trump congratulated Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week on his election victory - even before the official result was known. At the meeting of the two top politicians a few days earlier in Washington, the US President but apparently also issued a warning.

If Israel continues to develop its relations with China, the United States could reduce security cooperation with the Jewish state. As reported by Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent of Israeli TV station Kanal 13.

The Communist Unity Party has been on a major shopping spree for its megaproject of a "New Silk Road" for years. The great power from the Far East buys worldwide with many billions of dollars ports, railway lines and airfields to build a global trade corridor:

  • in Africa, for example in the strategically important Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden,
  • China is also driving its economic interests forward in Eastern Europe and the Balkans
  • and in late March, President Xi Jinping visited Italy to convince the government in Rome of the project. Successfully. Italy is thus the first G7 state to expect billions of investments from the People's Republic.

Israel's economy has also long been in the focus of the Chinese. Already in 2014, the Chinese state-owned company Bright Food and Tnuva bought Israel's market leader in dairy products - a national brand that is as well-known as Müllermilch in Germany between the Mediterranean and Jordan. China is now the second largest trading partner of the start-up nation and maintains twelve commercial agencies there.

US and Israel worried about industrial espionage

According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese investors participated in all 17 rounds of financing for Israeli start-ups worth over $ 20 billion in the first three quarters of 2018:

  • Many of these young companies are world leaders in the defense and cyber security sector.
  • Not a few work on so-called dual-use products - that is, on goods that can be used civilian and military.
  • And of these all work closely with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which in turn maintains a strong cooperation with the US alliance.

Washington, like the security apparatus in Israel, is worried that China could use its investments to spy on the economy and thus obtain security-related know-how from the United States. Already since 2005 Israel supplies - at the urging of the USA - no pure armaments goods to China; presumably also because the government in Beijing maintains close economic contacts with the archenemy Iran.

Intelligence chief warns against Chinese investments

Nadav Argaman, Chief of Domestic Intelligence, Schin Beth, warned in a non-official speech at Tel Aviv University earlier this year that national security was in danger - through infrastructure projects in Haifa and Tel Aviv involving thousands of Chinese workers:

  • The new subway line in Tel Aviv is part of
  • as well as the railway line between the port of Ashdod on the Mediterranean and Eilat, the city on the Red Sea.
  • Above all, a major project should have had Argaman in mind: The "Shanghai International Port Group" won in 2015 a tender for the construction of a new commercial port with container terminal in Haifa. The first work started in June last year.

In the immediate vicinity of the construction site are also the Israeli submarines of the Dolphin class from German production, which - unofficially - are equipped with nuclear weapons. In addition, the 6th US fleet has been anchored regularly in the Mediterranean port for decades. The question is, how much longer.

Netanyahu wants to expand cooperation with China

What is clear is that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to further expand economic cooperation with China. It was not until October that he received Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and a major business delegation in Jerusalem. With: Alibaba boss Jack Ma.

Ronen Zvulun / REUTERS

Wang Qishan and Benjamin Netanyahu

The Israeli educational institutions also rely on deals with China:

  • A few years ago, the University of Tel Aviv started a joint nanotechnology project with Tsinghua University. The Chinese built a research center for the equivalent of about $ 250 million.
  • The Hebrew University in Jerusalem will soon open its own campus in Shenzhen.
  • The University of Haifa has had a branch in Shanghai since November last year.

"Nobody can ignore China," says Ron Robin. The president of the university plans to set up joint programs for doctoral students and MA and BA students. But he also says: "We will only expand this cooperation if it is a win-win situation for both sides."