MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : How can the US & Israel better align to meet challenges posed by China?

While America and Israel had reached an agreement in 2005 to prevent the Jewish state from exporting defense systems to China, trade in other economic sectors has expanded, with China now Israel’s second-largest trading partner.

BY DMITRIY SHAPIRO jewish news syndicate – (May 3, 2021 / JNS) Greater awareness over the presence of China in worldwide technology and infrastructure spheres competing directly for influence against the United States will require more careful consideration of the type of investments allies such as Israel accept from China.

A panel of experts from three think tanks from the United States and Israel came together on April 29 for a discussion titled, “Aligning U.S.-Israel Cooperation on Technology Issues and China.”

The experts were representatives from a collaborative project that is expected to release a report in the coming months with strategies on how to foster bilateral cooperation between Israel and the United States in getting both nations on the same page when it comes to their threat perception of China.The virtual panel was moderated by Ilan Goldenberg, director and senior fellow of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and featured former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and distinguished visiting fellow at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Daniel Shapiro; Shira Efron, a senior research fellow at INSS; Jacob Nagel, former head of Israel’s National Security Council and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; and Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow for the technology and national security program at CNAS.

Shapiro recalled how in 2015, Israel rehabilitated its port in Haifa and hired a Chinese company to do the work. At the time, nobody in the U.S. intelligence community contacted Shapiro to indicate that the selection of a Chinese contractor would be a problem for the United States.

“Fast-forward about three years, about 2018, and suddenly Israel was hearing all kinds of alarm bells going off from the U.S. Navy, from the intelligence community, from all sorts of people in the U.S. defense community about the prospect of China being a major investor and operator of a port in which the U.S. Navy operated,” said Shapiro.

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