The incident occurred at China’s Xiangshan Forum, a security gathering that a China expert says is a platform for the CCP to disseminate propaganda.
China’s state-run media outlets are pushing an anti-Israel narrative built around a public confrontation in which a Chinese scholar clashed with an Israeli military officer over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The incident occurred on the sidelines of the annual Xiangshan Forum, which is widely regarded as China’s version of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a premier regional security summit held annually in Singapore. According to China’s state-run media, the heated exchange happened on Sept. 17, the first day of the three-day forum.
In online videos shared by state-run media, Yan Xuetong, a prominent Chinese scholar and dean of the Institute of International Relations at China’s Tsinghua University, can be heard talking to an Israeli officer, in a way Chinese media later described as “lecturing.”
The Epoch Times confirmed the identity of the officer as Col. Elad Shoshan, a military attaché in the Israeli Embassy in Beijing.
“You killed more than 70,000 civilians,” Yan says, while waving his finger in the Israeli officer’s face.
The exchange became material for the Chinese media to push anti-Israel propaganda. It appeared in various Chinese media reports. Chinese state media The Paper also circulated a clip that quickly went viral on the Chinese internet.
“So satisfying!” reads one headline. Another states: “Chinese Scholar Gives Israeli Official a Lesson Face to Face.”
The incident reveals the Chinese regime’s longstanding stance on the Gaza war, which started with Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas launching a surprise attack in October 2023 that killed an estimated 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took more than 250 hostages.
Chinese authorities have, for decades, maintained close ties with Palestinians. China was among the earliest to recognize the Palestinian state, and China’s central bank was directly implicated in aiding Hamas in the past.
On Sept. 19, after the U.S. envoy vetoed a United Nations resolution on Gaza over the lack of condemnation of Hamas, the Chinese ambassador spoke, accusing the United States of being “insolent.”
With the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, at least one Chinese military commentator, who once taught at the Chinese military academy, had spread a conspiracy that Israel might be tied to Kirk’s death, a claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuted as a “monstrous big lie.”
By Frank Fang and Eva Fu
