China–Israel relations
The People's Republic of China and the State of Israel formally established diplomatic relations in 1992. While the Republic of China had de jure recognized Israeli sovereignty in 1949, it eventually lost the Chinese Civil War, bringing the Chinese Communist Party to power across mainland China. In 1950, Israel became the first country in the Middle East to recognize the PRC as the sole government in mainland China, but the CCP did not reciprocate by establishing diplomatic ties due to Israel's alignment with the Western Bloc during the Cold War. This discontent persisted until the Cold War came to a close with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
China is Israel's second largest trading partner globally and its largest trading partner in East Asia. Bilateral trade volume increased from $50 million in 1992 to over $10 billion in 2013. Israel has traded significantly with China in technology and arms.
The relations between the two countries have been complicated by China's support for the Palestinians and Iran, both involved in ongoing conflicts with Israel, and the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States, Israel's primary security guarantor. In the United Nations, China has long voted in support of the Palestine and against Israel.
Israel maintains an embassy in Beijing and consulates-general in Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, while China maintains an embassy in Tel Aviv.
History
In the 1930s, David Ben-Gurion, then leader of the Yishuv in Palestine, proclaimed that China would be one of the great world powers of the future.During the 1930s and 1940s, Shanghai was an important haven for Jewish refugees. Along with the legacies of individuals such as Ho Feng-Shan who protected Jews, this history continues to be a shared positive point of reference for contemporary relations between China and Israel. Major Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have emphasized this history during visits to the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.
For some time after the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, the People's Republic of China was diplomatically isolated, because the United States and its allies, including Israel, recognized the Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China. The Nationalist government of the ROC had been historically sympathetic to the Zionist cause, while ROC founder Sun Yat-sen affirmed his support for the creation of a Jewish state.
Before 1955, the People's Republic of China did not have a stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict. This was largely because the PRC had few diplomatic contacts with Israel and the independent Arab states recognized the ROC at the time and not the PRC.
During the 1955 Bandung Conference, the PRC expressed support for the Palestinian right of return, but refrained from denying Israel's right to exist and secretly pursued trade ties with the Israelis. In January 1950, Israel formally recognized the PRC, becoming the first Middle Eastern state to do so.
During the Suez Crisis in 1956, China made strong statements in support of Egypt but did not make references to Israel when it condemned France and Britain.
In 1975, the PRC supported United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 that stated that Zionism was a form of racism. Until the 1980s, China refused to grant visas to Israelis unless they held dual citizenship and carried a passport of a country other than Israel. However, following the Sino-Soviet split and China's 1979 establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, China began to develop a series of secret, non-official ties with Israel.
Developing ties
China and Israel secretly began building military ties in the 1980s during the Soviet–Afghan War, which both Israel and China opposed. They both supplied weapons to the Afghan mujahideen, and military cooperation between the two began in order to assist the Islamic resistance against the Soviets. China and Israel subsequently started exchanging visits of delegations of academics, experts, businessmen and industrialists. Reportedly, a large number of the heavy tanks used in China's 1984 National Day parades were retrofitted by Israel from captured Six-Day War equipment.China eased travel restrictions, while Israel reopened its consulate in Hong Kong, which would serve as the main point for diplomatic and economic contact between the two nations. In 1987 Israel's Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, appointed Amos Yudan to set up the first official Government owned company to establish and foster commercial activities between companies in China and Israel. The company was active until 1992, when official diplomatic relationships were announced between Israel and China. In the early 1990s, China joined a number of nations who established ties with Israel after the initiation of a peace process between Israel and the PLO in the early 1990s; it also desired to play a role in the peace process.
The two countries established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Previously, Israel and China's representative offices in Beijing and Tel Aviv functioned as de facto embassies. The Israeli office was formally known as the Liaison Office of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. This was opened in June 1990. China was similarly represented by a branch of the China International Travel Service, which also opened in 1990.
Zev Sufott, who had served in the liaison office of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Beijing beginning in 1991, was appointed as Israel's first Ambassador to China upon the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992.
Early bilateral cooperation including establishing the Sino-Israeli Agricultural Training Center at China Agricultural University.
Relations in the 21st century
In 2009, China Radio International began broadcasting in Hebrew. In addition, the Chinese established Chinese institutes in Israel, to public and media activities of Israel-based Chinese diplomats.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited China in May 2013 and five agreements were signed during his visit. A government-to-government mechanism was established and five task forces were set up in high tech, environmental protection, energy, agriculture and financing. Netanyahu visited China again in 2017 amid celebrations taking place to commemorate 25 years of ties between the two countries.
During the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, it was reported that Israel was winning the public opinion battle in China with most Chinese social media users siding with Israel.
Starting in 2019, Chinese state-sponsored cyberespionage group UNC215 targeted Israeli government institutions, IT providers, and telecommunication firms in a series of attacks that attempted to disguise themselves as Iranian hackers.
In May 2020, the Chinese ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, was found dead at his home in Herzliya. While the exact cause of his death is unknown, it is believed he died of natural causes.
In November 2021, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Chinese leader, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping held the first-ever phone call between heads of state of Israel and China. According to the read-out from the Israeli President's Office, Herzog and Xi discussed opportunities to enhance Israeli-Chinese bilateral ties ahead of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, in honor of which Herzog and Xi invited each other to visit their respective countries.
Multiple commentators have noted a worsening in relations between the two countries since the October 7 attacks.
In 2025, Boaz Toporovsky led a Knesset delegation to Taiwan, the Chinese embassy in Israel objected strongly to the trip labeling Toporovsky a 'trouble-maker' and saying that such trips endanger the foundations of Israel-China relations. The statement also accused Toporovsky of violating the One China principle and said that "If he is not restrained, he will fall and shatter into pieces on the edge of the abyss." The statement also threatened Toporovsky, saying that he should "not delude himself that he can harm China's core interests... without paying a price." Ambassador Xiao Junzheng amplified the message by sharing it on social media. The Embassy later denied that it had threatened Toporovsky claiming that it had instead used a "popular Chinese saying." In October 2025 the Chinese embassy in Israel held a public presentation about the "Taiwan Question" for the first time, reiterating their strong anti-Taiwan position.
Military relations
Israel and China began military-to-military relations as early as the 1980s, even though no formal diplomatic relations existed. Before diplomatic relations were established in 1992 Israel had been selling arms to China. The use of military sales as a means of achieving foreign-policy goals was neither new nor unprecedented in Israeli foreign policy to promote its interests. Israel sold technology to upgrade Chinese tanks and planes in the 1980s. IAI Lavi and unmanned aerial vehicle technology seems to have been sold to China. Expertise in fitting western equipment in Soviet made hardware helped in modernization of Chinese army and air force, this way Chinese defense modernization complemented Israel's need of cash to fund its domestic made high-tech weapons programs.The arms embargo imposed by Western countries on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre offered an additional incentive for military relations and bilateral cooperation as a whole. Sanctions imposed by Western countries almost froze Chinese access to advanced military and dual-use technologies. Israel then sought to benefit from the situation and became China's backdoor for acquiring Western technology.
Israel was ready to sell China the EL/M-2075 Phalcon, an Israeli airborne early-warning radar system, until the United States forced it to cancel the deal. Some estimate that Israel sold arms worth US$4 billion to China in this period.
China had looked to Israel for the arms and military technology it could not acquire from the United States, Europe and Russia. China is a vital market for Israel's aerospace and defense industry.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency compiled evidence that Israel had transferred missile, laser and aircraft technology to China in the 1990s. On 19 October 1999, the Defense Minister of China, Chi Haotian, flew to Israel and met with Ehud Barak, then-Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Israel. They reached several high-level agreements, including a $1 billion Israeli-Russian sale of military aircraft to China. On 25 May 2011, the Commander of the People's Liberation Army Navy, Admiral Wu Shengli, made an official visit to Israel, meeting with Barak and Rear Admiral Eliezer Marom.
On 14 August 2011, General Chen Bingde, Chief of the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department, made an official visit to Israel. He came a guest of the Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who received him with an honor guard at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv. The visit came after Defense Minister Ehud Barak's visit to China in June, the first visit of a defense minister to the country in a decade. Bingde's visit was part of a tour that included stops in Russia and Ukraine.
On 13 August 2012, vessels from the People's Liberation Army Navy's 11th escort fleet, led by Rear Admiral Yang Jun-fei, anchored at Israel's Haifa naval base for a four-day goodwill visit to mark 20 years of cooperation between the Israel Defense Forces and the PLA. The vessels and crewmen were welcomed by the Haifa base commander, Brigadier General Eli Sharvit, and Chinese embassy officials. In July 2018, 180 acres of the Northern port in Haifa were transferred to the state-owned Shanghai International Port Group for a 25-year period of management. This sparked a heated discussion in the Israeli press and the academy, as well as a special discussion by the Israeli cabinet. It also came up in discussions between US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met on January 7, 2019.
In 2025, Israel's Ministry of Defense prohibited the use of certain BYD electric cars due to cyber-espionage concerns of unauthorized transmission of data to China. In January 2026, China prohibited domestic firms from using Israeli cybersecurity software.