When Prime Minister Naftali Bennett flies to Washington in the coming weeks – a final date has not yet been set – he will meet a president who is riding high and ready to face off against America’s greatest adversary.
That adversary is not Iran, Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, or even Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It is China, and Israel is on the wrong side of those battle lines.
Bennett should bear this in mind, because while he will be entering the Oval Office hoping to secure security commitments on Iran and Syria, President Joe Biden and his senior staff are looking for Israel to cut back on its relationship with China. They will be happy to talk about Iran, the Palestinians, and retaining the IDF’s qualitative military edge, but they also want secure commitments about China.
“We need to wake up,” one top government official said this week.
That is the prism through which one should view the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden pushed through the Senate this week. Yes, it will upgrade America’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new broadband initiatives; but it will also help the US remain in competition with China, which has been beating the West’s investments in infrastructure for years. As Biden warned a group of senators in February about Beijing: “If we don’t get moving, they are going to eat our lunch.”
While some see Biden just continuing Donald Trump’s anti-China policy, the new president seems to be led by a clear strategy and not just statements. He is working to undermine Beijing on multiple fronts – sanctions, advisories against doing business in Hong Kong, and openly accusing China’s Ministry of State Security of launching cyberattacks against the West.
Israel received a taste of that cyber threat this week when the international cybersecurity company FireEye announced that China had hacked dozens of public and private Israeli tech and infrastructure companies as part of a plan to steal technology and information.
This is the same China that has been eating Israel’s infrastructure for the last decade. Ports, power stations, bridges, tunnels and more have all been built by China. All indications are that Biden will bring this up with Bennett when the two meet. Some in Israel’s government have recommended convening the security cabinet to discuss the issue. It is that important.
While Trump officials tried to move the previous government to crack down on Chinese investments in Israel, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not do much except buy time, with the establishment of a weak oversight mechanism in 2019 that officials admit is impotent. The Americans have noticed too, and want to see tougher action.
Which brings us to the delay in announcing which construction companies won the tender to build the Tel Aviv light rail’s new Green and Purple Lines. NTA, the government-funded company responsible for the design and construction of the transit system – which is run by former Prisons Service officer Haim Glick – has been dragging its feet in making a final decision.
(Officially, NTA Spokesman Avi First claimed on Thursday that the company was waiting for the Finance Ministry to allow it to open the envelopes. Asked about the claim, Finance Ministry Spokesperson Lilach Weissman, who represents Dir.-Gen. Ram Belinkov who also serves as the chairman of NTA, refused to respond).
The delay in announcing the winner makes diplomatic sense for Israel, if the tender has been won by the China Railway Construction Company (CRCC), a member of one of the groups competing for the multi-billion-dollar deal.
CRCC is well-known in Israel, and has worked here for years. One of its subsidiaries, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC), dug the Gilon Tunnel in the North in 2014 at a cost of about $200m, worked as a subcontractor on the Carmel Tunnel project for about $150m. in 2010, and for the last couple of years has been working on the Tel Aviv light rail’s Red Line to the tune of $500m.
Biden issued an executive order in June banning these companies from receiving any US investment, due to suspected ties to the Chinese defense industry. So Americans cannot do business with the CRCC, but Israel seems to think that it can.
The winner of the tender was originally scheduled to be announced in June. Some industry experts have speculated that Bennett wants to delay the announcement until after his meeting with Biden.
If that is his strategy, the prime minister might want to rethink it. Yes, once the tender winner is announced it is almost impossible to annul the decision. But Bennett would be wise to avoid the NTA announcing that CRCC has won the tender just a few weeks after he returns from giving assurances in Washington that he will cut back Israel’s ties with China. That will only cause Israel greater trouble.
Whatever the case, Israel needs to tread carefully in the years to come. America is going up against China with all of its economic prowess. Israel won’t be able to say that it didn’t know.