A Taiwan flag can be seen on an overpass ahead of National Day celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ann Wang

China has strongly condemned a senior Taiwanese official’s reported secret trip to Israel, describing the issue of Taiwan as a “red line” for the Chinese government and warning the Jewish state not to send “wrong signals” to those pushing for the island’s independence.

The Reuters news agency reported on Thursday that Taiwan’s high-profile Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu made a recent, previously unpublicized visit to Israel, citing three sources familiar with the trip.

China considers Taiwan, a nearby island run by a democratic government, as a renegade Chinese province that must be reunited with the mainland — by force, if necessary. Due to pressure from Beijing, few countries have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Israel only recognizes Beijing but not Taipei, which has been increasingly looking to Israel for defense cooperation.

Taiwanese diplomats travel abroad, but trips to countries such as Israel are rare.

The anonymous sources told Reuters that Wu had visited Israel in recent weeks. Two of the sources said the trip happened this month.

China responded with outrage to the reported trip.

“The one-China principle is the consensus of the international community and a basic norm of international relations,” China’s embassy in Israel said in a statement. “It is also the prerequisite and foundation for establishing and developing diplomatic ties between China and countries around the world, including Israel.”

The embassy then invoked the China-Israel Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, which states that Israel recognizes that the Chinese government “is the sole legal government representing the whole of China and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.”

Describing the issue of Taiwan as a “red line,” the embassy said it “firmly objects” to Israel’s reported contact with Taiwanese officials.

“The Taiwan question concerns China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and constitutes an inviolable red line at the very core of China’s core interests,” the statement continued. “The Chinese side firmly objects to any form of official exchanges with the Taiwan authorities, which seriously violate the one-China principle. We once again urge the Israeli side to faithfully abide by the one-China principle, correct the erroneous actions, and stop sending any wrong signals to separatist forces advocating Taiwan independence, so as to uphold the overall interests of China-Israel relations through concrete actions.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry has declined to comment on whether Wu visited Israel.

“Taiwan and Israel share the values of freedom and democracy, and will continue to pragmatically promote mutually beneficial exchanges and cooperation” in areas such as trade, technology and culture and welcome more “mutually beneficial forms of cooperation,” it said in a statement.

Israel‘s foreign ministry has similarly not commented on the matter.

An Israeli official told Israel Hayom that the visit took place but downplayed its importance. The official reportedly said that Wu met with two members of Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset, from the Opposition and the Coalition. However, Israel’s Foreign Ministry boycotted the visit as part of its policy of non-confrontation with Beijing on the issue of Taiwan, according to the report.

Still, Taiwan views Israel as an important democratic partner and has been a strong backer of the Jewish state since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

In October of this year, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said that Israel is a model for Taiwan to learn from in strengthening its defenses, citing the Biblical story of David versus Goliath on the need to stand up to authoritarianism.

“The Taiwanese people often look to the example of the Jewish people when facing challenges to our international standing and threats to our sovereignty from China. The people of Taiwan have never become discouraged,” he said. “Israel’s determination and capacity to defend its territory provides a valuable model for Taiwan. I have always believed that Taiwan needs to channel the spirit of David against Goliath in standing up to authoritarian coercion.”

He made the remarks during a dinner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Taiwan.

That same month, Wu met in Taipei with Yinon Aaroni, Director General of Israel‘s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, while in September Taiwan President Lai Ching-te met six Israeli lawmakers at his office.

Taiwan has a de facto embassy in Tel Aviv, while Israel has a similar representative office in Taipei. There is no similar arrangement between Taiwan and the Palestinians, with whom China has a close relationship. China recognized a Palestinian state in 1988. Taiwan has said it does not plan to recognize a Palestinian state.

Lai in October announced a new multi-layered air defense system called “T-Dome” to defend itself against a possible future attack by China. It is partly modeled on Israel‘s air defense system.

Lai told the AIPAC dinner that T-Dome had been inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, as well as US President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.

“I believe that trilateral Taiwan-US-Israel cooperation can help achieve regional peace, stability, and prosperity,” he said.

The Chinese embassy’s statement chiding Israel this week came days after China slammed the Jewish state earlier this month for recently joining a United Nations declaration condemning Beijing’s human rights record.

Israel had endorsed a US-backed declaration, signed by 15 other countries — including the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan — that expressed “deep and ongoing concerns” over human rights violations in China.

In a rare move, Jerusalem broke with its traditionally cautious approach to China — aimed at preserving diplomatic and economic ties — by signing on to the statement. The signatory countries denounced China’s repression of ethnic and religious minority groups, citing arbitrary detentions, forced labor, mass surveillance, and restrictions on cultural and religious expression.

According to the statement, minority groups — particularly Uyghurs, other Muslim communities, Christians, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners — face targeted repression, including the separation of children from their families, torture, and the destruction of cultural heritage.

In response, China’s Foreign Ministry accused the signatories of “slandering and smearing” the country and interfering in its internal affairs “in serious violation of international law and basic norms of international relations.”

Meanwhile, Beijing continues to strengthen relations with Iran, whose Islamic government openly seeks Israel’s destruction, and expand its influence in the Middle East.

China, a key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.

China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing.

Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.

According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel in June.

These diplomatic moves come amid an already tense relationship with China, strained since the start of the war in Gaza. In September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Beijing, along with Qatar, of funding a “media blockade” against the Jewish state.

At the time, the Chinese embassy in Israel dismissed such accusations, saying they “lack factual basis [and] harm China-Israel relations.”

That same month, however, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think tank, released a report showing China has increasingly used state media and covert campaigns to spread anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives in the United States.

The report examined how China’s state media portrays Israel and the United States as solely responsible for the war in Gaza, depicting them as destabilizing actors while spreading anti-Israel and antisemitic messages.

“It is evident that China and its proxies play a significant role in the current wave of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States,” Ofir Dayan, a research associate in the Israel-China Policy Center at INSS, wrote in the report.

According to Dayan, China’s dissemination of anti-Israel narratives is not intended to directly harm Israel but rather to undermine the US, while preserving its valuable diplomatic and economic ties with Jerusalem.

“Israel is used as a tool to advance Beijing’s claim that Washington destabilizes both the international system and the regions where it operates,” the report said.

While China’s primary aim is to target the United States, Israel ends up suffering “collateral damage” as a result, the study found.

A drone view shows Palestinians walking past the rubble, following Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the area, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City, Oct. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

The Trump administration is planning to appoint an American two-star general to command the International Stabilization Force in Gaza, Axios reported on Thursday, citing two US officials and two Israeli officials.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

A United Nations Security Council resolution, adopted on Nov. 17, authorized a Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force in Gaza.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, who visited Israel this week, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials that the Trump administration is going to lead the ISF and appoint a two-star general as its commander, Axios said.

The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that an announcement about which world leaders will serve on the Gaza Board of Peace should be made early next year.

The resolution, drafted by the US, described the Board of Peace as a transitional administration “that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for the redevelopment of Gaza” in line with Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the war with terrorist group Hamas.

The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon

Al Jazeera Centre for Studies — the research arm of Qatar’s state-backed media giant — co-hosted an academic conference last week in Qatar’s Education City that whitewashed Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, and dismissed UN-verified sexual violence and other terrorist acts as Israeli fabrications.

Al Jazeera partnered with Hamad Bin Khalifa University to host the November 29-30 gathering, titled “International Media and the War on Gaza: Modalities of Discourse and the Clash of Narratives,” which drew academics to “deconstruct Western narratives” and the alleged role of Western media outlets in producing “propaganda manipulating international public opinion.”

In a seven-page concept note describing the goals of the conference, Al Jazeera’s organizers charged the Western media with justifying “Israel’s right to self-defense” and spreading “propaganda” about terrorist groups like Hamas, which they refer to as a “Palestinian resistance faction.” The organizers also attacked media outlets for writing about what it refers to as “false reports” about Hamas terrorists “raping Israeli women.”

During Hamas’ assault on Israel, terrorists systematically employed sexual violence as a weapon of war, including rape against women and girls. A New York Times investigation detailed at least seven locations where Hamas terrorists committed such acts, including gang rape and genital mutilation. In December 2023, then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Hamas’ use of sexual violence and described it as “beyond anything I’ve seen.”

According to the Dina Project, an Israeli group of legal and gender experts, Hamas used sexual violence in its massacre “as part of a genocidal scheme” meant to “dehumanize Israeli society.”

The organizers’ concept note and the conference’s program made no reference to Hamas’ genocidal charter, its embedding of military assets in civilian areas, or the terrorist group’s responsibility for prolonging the conflict. The conference instead provided a platform for Al Jazeera journalists and academics to explain away Hamas terrorism and denigrate Israel.

While it operates under strict Qatari media laws that limit free speech and freedom of expression, making criticism of the Emir and his policies punishable by law, Al Jazeera’s Centre for Studies refers to itself as an “independent research institution that aims to present a balanced understanding of the geopolitics of the MENA region and the Arab world in particular.” While it seeks to appeal to an audience with Western sensibilities, the center is far from the public-facing independent institution that it presents itself to be.

The center was established in 2006 to “provide research support to the editorial teams, correspondents and departments of Al Jazeera’s news channels.”

Al Jazeera Organizers and Speakers Push Hamas’s Agenda

Arafat Madi Shoukri, who works as a senior researcher for the Centre for Studies, organized the conference. In 2013, Shoukri was designated as a Hamas operative by Israel for his work with the Hamas-aligned Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).

Shoukri has been photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, one of the architects of the October 7 massacre. He also directed the London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), an organization with extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has national branches that promote violent jihad and Hamas. In 2010, then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared the PRC an “illegal association,” referring to it as a “Hamas affiliated organization” that engages in “terror affiliated activities.”

The conference featured as its keynote speaker Wadah Khanfar, a former director general of Al Jazeera, who has been linked to Hamas fundraising efforts, with evidence suggesting he helped coordinate Hamas paramilitary activity in South Africa. According to the Raya Media Network, a Palestinian outlet, Khanfar was “active in the Hamas movement” and a “leader in the movement’s office in Sudan.”

In May 2024, Khanfar praised Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack, proclaiming it “came at the perfect moment for a radical and real shift in the path of struggle and liberation.” Khanfar had a close relationship to the late Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood, who leveraged Al Jazeera’s global reach to endorse terrorism against Jews, Israelis, and Americans and spread antisemitic narratives. Khanfar eulogized him at his funeral.

“There is a betrayal of the values of justice through capitalist savagery,” Khanfar said during his lecture, titled “The Grand Narratives of Western Media in Covering the War on Gaza: Manifestations of Political and Ideological Domination.” His lecture attacked Israel for “hastening the fall” of Western civilization, while ignoring Israel’s strategic role as a democratic anchor for the West in a mostly volatile and authoritarian region of the world.

Campus Reform reports that professor Ibrahim Abusharif, who spoke at the conference, co-founded and served as treasurer of the Quranic Literacy Institute, which was “later found by a federal jury to have laundered more than $1 million to Hamas” in a terrorism financing case. The publication reported that Abusharif taught the mandatory “Doha Seminar” for all American exchange students at Northwestern’s Qatar campus.

Mutaz al-Khatib, director of the Master’s Programme in Applied Islamic Ethics at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Islamic Studies, spoke at the conference on “professional ethics” in war coverage. On the day of Hamas’ October 7 massacre, al-Khatib posted on Facebook that, “What happened was merely a rehearsal that shows that liberating Jerusalem is possible.”

Fatima Alsmadi, a researcher at the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, moderated a session and presented on Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida’s “impact on international public opinion.” Abu Obaida, who was killed in an IDF strike in August 2025, reportedly employed “psychological warfare games against Israel” and attempted to make Westerners more “sympathetic” to Hamas.

Alsmadi claimed in her lecture that Israel has somehow “benefited” from Nazism. She praised Hamas propaganda efforts employed by Abu Obaida that weaponize Nazi imagery against Israel, seemingly endorsing a media strategy that perversely brands Israel as a Nazi state to legitimize Hamas terrorism and invert historical truth.

In the same session, Manal Mazahreh, an associate professor of mass communication at the University of Petra, in Jordan, claimed that, “The Jews are largely controlling the media in the world,” repeating an antisemitic trope used to justify hostility toward Jews.

In one session, Eman Barakat, an associate professor at the University of Science and Technology in Yemen, described the Israeli government’s social media presence as “digital warfare” and claimed it has manipulated public perceptions by labeling Hamas as “pure evil” and an “illegitimate group.”

Barakat focused her presentation on Israel Speaks Arabic, a Facebook page with more than three million followers. She assessed that the page described Hamas as “morally degraded,” “lowly,” and “cowardly,” and highlighted the group’s involvement in criminal and murderous activity. She warned her audience that such language “makes you imagine things” and might lead users to believe that “maybe what they are saying is true.” Barakat dismissed Hamas’ history of brutality and terrorism not only against Israel but against Palestinians and others. 

Freedom House evaluates Qatar as “Not Free” in its annual Freedom of the World report.

Al Jazeera sells its content to major wire services like the Associated Press and Reuters. Al Jazeera has resource-sharing agreements that allow outlets like CNN to access Al Jazeera’s footage and Al Jazeera to use CNN’s news feed. Al Jazeera also has arrangements with the BBC, France 24, and The Guardian that enable them to use Al Jazeera’s video footage and reports. Other media outlets, including Deutsche Welle and Euronews, have direct syndication arrangements, allowing them to use Al Jazeera’s content without intermediaries. It also has robust relationships with Google and other tech giants.

Until Doha stops using its universities and state media to whitewash terrorism, American institutions and companies need to reconsider their relationship with all platforms in Al Jazeera’s vast ecosystem. Continued partnerships and collaboration from Western organizations only emboldens the next denial and further justification for violence.

Toby Dershowitz is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Asher Boiskin is an intern. Follow them on X @TobyDersh and @asherboiskin.