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Israel, China celebrates 20 years of diplomatic relations

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TEL AVIV (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday praised the relations between Israel and China at a reception celebrating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"We may be celebrating 20 years of relations, but our peoples are now celebrating a thousand years of friendship," Netanyahu said.

He mentioned China's fair treatment towards the Jewish communities in the past, and the safe-haven given to them during the holocaust. "Like the Chinese people, the Jewish people have a long memory. We always remember our friends. We always remember people who extended a hand to us in our darkest days and we are grateful for China for that."

The prime minister said that the friendship between the two sides can further deepen. "I think we barely scratched the surface of Israeli-Chinese relations. I have no doubt that in the coming years we'll see a dramatic expansion of these ties," he said.

"We've talked about doubling the trade (between the two countries). Well, I'd like to see a doubling of a doubling of the trade. I think Israel and China together are a winning combination, " Netanyahu said.

In addition to the prime minister, several other senior Israeli officials attended the reception, among them ministers, former ambassadors and envoys to China and key figures in the bilateral ties.

Chinese ambassador Gao Yanping said that "Over the past 20 years our pragmatic cooperation has been booming. When we started our diplomatic relations in 1992, our two-way trade volume was only a little bit more than 50 million U.S. dollars. Now the trade volume we have in two days equals that of the whole year of 1992."

She said that "The further development of China-Israel relations is not only beneficial to both countries and the two peoples, but also very much conductive to regional stability, world peace and global prosperity."

"Facing the ongoing major transformation and adjustment in the region and in the world, the China-Israel relationship is now at a new historical point. We should continue to work together, grow together and succeed together in the years to come," Gao added.

Israel, China celebrates 20 years of diplomatic relations - Home » Other Sections » Breaking News

---------- Post added at 07:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 AM ----------

Netanyahu sees expansion of ties with China

Jan 24 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he envisaged a dramatic expansion of Israel's diplomatic ties with China, including a possible role for Beijing in Middle East diplomacy.

Speaking in Tel Aviv at a celebration marking 20 years since the two nations forged relations, Netanyahu said: "I think we've barely scratched the surface of Israeli-Chinese relations. I have no doubt that in the coming years we'll see a dramatic expansion of these ties.

Israeli government figures estimate bilateral trade as having totalled some $8 billion in 2011, up from $6.7 billion in 2010.

Netanyahu also saw Beijing as playing a role in European and U.S.-mediated diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians.

Under Communist rule, China was a main backer of Palestinian struggle for statehood but later lowered its profile on the conflict after forging ties with the Jewish state in the early 1990s.

"I think we can also work together to address the challenges of securing Middle East peace," Netanyahu said at the gathering attended by Chinese and Israeli diplomats.

Netanyahu sees expansion of ties with China | Reuters
 
Good to see such cooperation in the world. :tup:

China has an enormous number of domestic consumers that can absorb Israeli exports, and Israel has some very vital technology that can help us a lot in the future (especially water management technologies).

To be realistic, there is a limit to China-Israel cooperation, due to the fact that Israel is strongly in the American camp, and we are not. Hopefully Israel will be able to sell us military technologies in the future with a more independent stance, and without America shutting it down.
 
Its better if China and India keep a balanced relationship between the Arabs and Israelis. Better than the meddling by Americans for sure. Long live china Israel friendship !!
 
Modern city, treasured past
Shanghai has always been a haven for Diaspora Jews.
KELLEY KORBIN
The booming Chinese economy is attracting Jews from around the world to live as expatriates in China's modern commercial hub, Shanghai. More than 1,000 Jews now live in this fast-growing metropolis of 20 million, where many work as teachers, diplomats and entrepreneurs.

These expatriates are the latest wave in a centuries-old saga of Jews living and working in China – arguably the most historically tolerant country in the world to Jews.

The first Jews to immigrate to China were most likely traders who came via the Silk Road to exchange their wares in the eighth or ninth century. But no substantial Jewish population settled in Shanghai until the first wave of modern Jewish immigration to the city began in 1842, when a treaty port was established and Shanghai became an open city, meaning no entry visa was required to enter it.

Sephardi Jewish immigrants from Baghdad, Bombay, Spain and Portugal began arriving in what was then (and is again today) an important world trade centre. Many of these immigrants became famous and successful in China. Families like the Sassoons and the Hardoons were significant contributors to the establishment of the city and built many of Shanghai's famous landmarks. For example, the Sassoon family built the Peace Hotel on the Bund, which still operates today.

The community also built cemeteries and synagogues – at one time, there were seven synagogues in Shanghai. Ohel Rachel was built by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in 1920 in memory of his wife, Lady Rachel. The synagogue housed a school, a mikvah and a library. The building still stands and, although it has been used as a warehouse by the Communist government for the last 50 or so years, it was recently declared a world historical site and the Chinese government has given permission for the current Shanghai Jewish community to use it four times a year for religious services.

The only other synagogue remaining in Shanghai is Ohel Moshe, built in 1927, which is situated in the Hong Kou district. Hong Kou became a Jewish ghetto during the Second World War. Ohel Moshe is now open as a museum of Jewish history in China and many of the 50,000 Jewish tourists who visit Shanghai each year tour the site.

The second wave of modern Jewish immigration to China began in the 1920s, when thousands of Russian Jews flocked to China, fleeing pogroms and the Russian Revolution. At one time, 4,500 Russian Jews lived in Shanghai. Once they arrived, these new Jewish refugees, who were for the most part relatively poor, were assisted, in the spirit of tzedakah, by the existing established Sephardi community.

But it is Shanghai's history as a safe haven for European Jews escaping the Nazi regime that most endears the city to many Jews. It was one of the few, if not only, places in the world where immigrants were not required to hold an entry visa, so thousands of European Jews entered Shanghai between 1938 and 1944. This is in stark contrast to other countries, like Canada, that flat out denied entry or put quotas on the number of Jews they would accept. In fact, Shanghai has been credited with saving more Jews during the Holocaust than all of the Commonwealth countries combined. In total, about 20,000 Jewish refugees from Austria, Germany and Poland found refuge in Shanghai.

The Japanese invaded China in 1937. In 1943, under pressure from their German allies, the Japanese occupiers, who had now reached Shanghai, rounded up most of the city's European Jews, forced them to leave their homes and close their businesses and reallocated them into a "ghetto" in the Hong Kou district where, despite German policy, they were allowed to live almost without interference. Although these immigrants were forced to make do with dilapidated residences and faced shortages of many necessities, including food and medicine, compared to the terrors endured in European Jewish ghettos, their lives were relatively good and the Shanghai Chinese, also living under occupation, were kind to Jews. Interestingly, Jews from neutral countries like Iraq were left alone by the Japanese.

Vancouver Jewish community member Ralph Kuropatwa was born in Shanghai in 1940. His parents arrived there from Europe independently: his father, Zelik Kuropatwa, came from Belgium in 1936, his mother, Fanny Klapholz, fled Germany for Shanghai in 1939. The elder Kuropatwa and Klapholz met at a party at a boarding house and soon married. Ralph Kuropatwa and his younger brother, Franklin, lived in Shanghai until 1945.

"I remember speaking a pidgin Shanghai dialect, because I had an ama, a Chinese babysitter, because my mom and dad ran a stationery store," recalled Kuropatwa, who said he has few memories of his time in Shanghai.

Kuropatwa said that, although he knows his parents suffered hardship during those years in Shanghai, especially when they were forced to move to the Hong Kou ghetto in 1943, for him and his friends, life was good and they felt relatively safe.

"I had a happy childhood in Shanghai," he said. "To someone under four feet tall, day-to-day life was good. We weren't hiding; [rather we were] living, working and doing our best in trying circumstances.... It was primarily a haven. We had lots of social and business relationships with Chinese people and we'd ooh and aah over each others' food."

As for the Japanese occupation, in hindsight, Kuropatwa reflects that the Jews in Shanghai were "in relative safety, even under the Japanese. It wasn't until three months before the war ended that the Japanese were setting up death camps under German pressure - but to their credit, they were moving reluctantly and slowly. The Japanese didn't hurry to do the bidding of their allies. My father's impression was that the Japanese were quite respectful of Jewish culture," he said.

Nevertheless, the Kuropatwas and other Jewish refugees in Shanghai eagerly anticipated the end of the war. "My most romantic memory is from 1944," recalled Kuropatwa. "I remember my dad taking me in his arms, despite the protests of my mother, and rushing me up to the roof of our tenement flat and it was night time, dark, and the Americans were bombing the Japanese ammunition sites – the ammunition dumps were deliberately placed in the centre of the Jewish populations, a trick the Japanese learned from Germany – my father was saying, 'Look, look, the Americans are coming,' as if it was the Messiah."

After the war, Kuropatwa said his father was desperate to get back to Europe to see his family and friends – only to be "continually shocked to find they had been decimated."

Kuropatwa owes his life to the city of Shanghai and remarked that he has a fondness for the Chinese people and culture. "Something Chinese will always be in my heart," he declared.

Today, amid the myriad ultra-modern, multi-storied buildings in Shanghai, many of the streets in Hong Kou, including the one where Ohel Moshe is located, remain much as they were during the war years, minus of course the Viennese bakeries, kosher butchers and Jewish schools run by the Jewish refugees who peppered those streets during the first half of the 20th century.

At the end of the Second World War, approximately 24,000 Jews lived in Shanghai. By 1950, as a result of the Communist revolution and the establishment of the People's Republic of China, only a handful remained. Now, with China opening its borders more to international trade, the city of Shanghai is once again welcoming Jewish expatriates and Diaspora Jews.

Kelley Korbin is a Vancouver freelance writer.
A Chinese hero

One of the unsung heroes from the Holocaust is Dr. Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese consulate general in Vienna from 1938 to 1940. Ho risked his career and his life to save thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution. At the time, Jews in Austria were trapped there, unable to leave unless they had an entry visa for a specific country. So, although China did not even require an entrance visa at the time, and in defiance of direct orders from his own ambassador and the Nazis, Ho issued thousands of Chinese visas to Jews – a visa for every Jewish person who applied to him. The majority of these refugees never went to China, but used the visa to get them out of Austria and then found shelter in other countries.

When Ho's consulate was shut down by the Nazis in 1939, the Chinese government, short on funds and afraid of German retaliation, refused to provide the financing to relocate it. Ho took matters into his own hands. He paid out of his own pocket to set up a smaller office, where he continued to issue visas to Jews until the conclusion of his mission.

In his 1990 memoir, My 40 Years of Diplomatic Life, Ho wrote: "Since the annexation of Austria by the Germans, the persecution of the Jews by Hitler's 'devils' became increasingly fierce ... I spared no effort in using any means possible. Innumerable Jews were saved."

Ho has since been given the designation "righteous among the nations" by the State of Israel.

– Kelley Korbin
 
Jews were also behind the opium wars. Not blaming modern Israelis. Best to keep our distance to both Israelis and the Arabs and not get ourselves involved in that part of the world, except for oil and our strategic interests in Africa, Iran and Syria.
 
Pakistan wont be happy above China being allies with Israel

It's China's own decision who to make friends with. Pakistan respects China's choices. Relation between Pakistan and China are truly examplary for the whole world. Two of our nation's show truest sincerity to each other and respect each other's views, the way it should be.
 

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