A Late Handshake

In 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded. Israel acknowledged the new China in 1950, but they didn't establish diplomatic relationship with China until 1992. Though Israel was the first country which acknowledged New China in the Middle East, it was the last one to establish diplomatic relationship with China, and this 40-year diplomatic relationship establishing process became a unique case in international relations history. There are a series of complicated factors could be used to explain this phenomenon, some of them were generated in the Cold War era, and bearing with a typical mark of the Cold War. Others were generated in the Cold War era too, but they still exist nowadays. Therefore, although the establishment of Sino-Israel relationship is based on history, there are still some factors beyond the explanation of history. So far, there are many studies on the establishment of Sino-Israel relationship in the academic circle, most of them were focusing on the historical process, few were deeper exploration which combining with methodology. This M.A. dissertation will try to explore the historical process of the Sino-Israel diplomatic relationship establishing, combining the specific empirical analysis on relevant historical materials with famous scientific analysis toll in international relations effectively, so as to conduct a deep research to this significant issue in international relations history with hierarchical and multiple perspectives.From the perspective of hierarchical analysis, a series of sophisticated factors of Sino-Israel diplomatic relationship are systematically distributed on three levels: international situation of macroscopic scale, domestic politics of middlescopic scale, and decision makers of microscopic scale. Firstly, on the level of international situation, in the context of the Cold War, geographical crumbliness in Middle East and dipolar rivalry of authorities in the world lead to stagnation in the process of Sino-Israel relationship, even though no direct conflict occurred between the two countries. The process restarted following the end of Cold War. Secondly, on the level of domestic politics, although China's pro-Arab countries and Israel's Pro-USA are the obstructive factors for the establishing of Sino-Israel diplomatic relationships, China's reform and opening-up policy in 1980 s and Israel's desire to get rid of isolation with surrounding hostile countries, and the positive effect of the Israel Communist Party on Sino-Israel relations, all these factors had advanced the establishment of Sino-Israel diplomatic relationship towards a slow but steady direction. Finally, on the level of decision makers, to China, in the 1950-70's, the communist ideology of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai impacted on China's foreign policy for Israel. But they are friendly to Jewish people and approve the Jewish people's right to live. Their attitude is different for Israel and Jewish people; In 1980's, the ideological influences were growing eclipsed, Deng Xiaoping carried out reform and opening-up policy, it was fully replaced by pragmatic and flexible foreign policy; In 1990's, Jiang Zemin promoted all-directional foreign policy, that promoted to the establishment diplomatic relations between Chinese and Israel. To China, all the different leadership style exerted a profound impact on China's attitude toward Israel. To Israel, the sufferings of the Jews and the background of the founding of Israel, given their leaders, from David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Shamir to Simon Peres, keep a relative objective judgment to the importance of Sino-Israel relationship. In addition, the civilian personnel and some organizations in Israel also made an indelible contribution to the establishment of Sino-Israel relationship.To sum up, in the historical process of establishing Sino-Israel diplomatic relationships, international situation, domestic politics and policymakers, all made some important influences to the bilateral relations. However, no matter from which level factor, the national interests consideration is the base of the foreign policy of these two states. When the national interests overlap between the two countries, they will move toward a positive direction. Meanwhile, in the establishment of Sino-Israel diplomatic relationship, we should not ignore the accidental factors such as the Korean War, the Bandung Conference, the Gulf War and the Middle East peace talks, etc. So the predication and control of accidental variables are also the necessary means for a country to maximize its national interest.