Israel-US-China triangle fertile ground for Hollywood spy thriller
Coming on the heels of last week's visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it's open season for conspiracists to suggest there's a connection to Du Wei's death.
By DAVID BRINNDu Wei, China's Ambassador to Ukraine, speaks during a news briefing in Kiev, Ukraine August 30, 2019(photo credit: REUTERS/VALENTYN OGIRENKO/FILE PHOTO)
It has all the trappings of a Hollywood geopolitical spy blockbuster.Two superpowers – let’s call them West and East – are trapped in an increasingly hostile war of words over world domination and the origin of a global pandemic, which has paralyzed the world’s population. A small, but influential country – Little Middle – finds itself stuck in the middle by accepting protection from the West and tech and infrastructure knowhow from the East.Last week, the West’s secretary of state parachutes in for a lightning visit to Little Middle for “frank” discussions about this untenable cozying up to the East, which he says puts both countries – the West and Little Middle – at grave risk.The spokesman for the East’s ambassador to Little Middle writes a scathing opinion piece in Little Middle’s leading English daily newspaper/website, skewering the West’s handling of the pandemic and its secretary of state’s comments.Then, a couple of days later, the East’s ambassador – who arrived to his post at the beginning of the pandemic outbreak – is found dead in his bed in his residence in one of Little Middle’s poshest neighborhoods.Cue Ethan Hunt.On the surface, there should be no thought of an international conspiracy having any connection to the sudden, very unfortunate death of Du Wei. Police say there were no signs of foul play and presume that the 58-year-old ambassador succumbed to a heart attack while sleeping.But in this era of nothing is as it seems, it’s only natural to speculate on the timing of the death and the circumstances the three countries in this unlikely triangle find themselves in – a volatile accusatory stew of COVID-19, 5G and construction projects.Coming so soon on the heels of last week’s high-profile visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the escalating war of words between the US and China, it’s open season for conspiracists to suggest there’s a connection to Du Wei’s death.As The Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov wrote in a deep dive into the contentious US-Israel-China triangle last week, friction between Washington and Beijing has been on the rise for years. The Israel connection has seeped into the fight as the Jewish state has increased its economic cooperation with Chinese firms for investments and infrastructure projects across the country – like the Haifa Port terminal, which is being constructed and will be operated by a Chinese company.
The US has grown increasingly wary of those ties, saying they could pose cybersecurity and intelligence threats, and both Pompeo and US President Donald Trump have warned Israel that if it doesn’t curb its ties with China, its security cooperation and intelligence sharing with the US could be curtailed.What does all that have to with the sudden death of Du Wei, who, in his Jerusalem Post March op-ed and other forums, steadfastly rejected China’s malfeasance in the global spread of the coronavirus and Trump’s terming it the “China virus”?Probably nothing. But rest assured, because of the ambassador’s untimely death, there’s a Hollywood or Tel Aviv screenwriter already putting the finishing touches on the treatment for the next big international geopolitical thriller – with Little Israel smack-dab in the Middle.
