Foreign Policy reported on March 24, that this month, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) will present the cabinet with its recommendations on foreign investments in Israel. A recent survey by the Israeli intelligence community that is not yet in the public domain shows that Chinese investment in the Middle East rose by 1,700 percent between 2012 and 2017. Altogether, the Chinese have invested $700 billion in the region. Nearly half of it is in the energy sector, $150 billion in research and development, $113 billion in industry, $103 billion in transportation, $68 billion in the military field, $4 billion in financial loans, and only $155 million in humanitarian aid. From 1992 to 2017, China’s bilateral trade with Israel has grown from $50 million to $13.1 billion, making it Israel’s largest trading partner in Asia and its third-largest trading partner in the world after the European Union and the United States. In the first half of 2018, China’s imports from Israel reached $2.77 billion, an increase of 47 percent compared with the same period in 2017.
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