Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) met with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping on Monday to discuss the ongoing Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the U.S.-China relationship.
During the meeting, Schumer said that China should have been more supportive of Israel following attacks that left more than 900 Israelis dead and 2,300 wounded, saying that China should use its influence with Iran to stop the attacks on Israel.
“I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn the cowardly and vicious attacks,” Schumer said. “I was very disappointed, to be honest, by the foreign ministry’s statement that showed no sympathy or support for Israel during these troubled times.”
Joined by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Sen. Jon Ossof (D-GA), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), Schumer met with Xi for 80 minutes at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The trip is the first visit by a delegation of lawmakers to China since 2019.
At a press conference after the meeting with Xi, Schumer said that China should press Iran over the attacks.
“They have influence with Iran in many different ways, and we asked them to do everything they could to not have Iran spread this conflagration through themselves and through Hezbollah,” he said.
On Monday, Chinese spokesperson Mao Ning said China was a “common friend of Israel and Palestine.”
“We sincerely hope to see Palestine and Israel co-existing peacefully and sharing security and development,” Mao added.
On Sunday, China called for a two-state solution and the creation of “an independent State of Palestine.” China’s statement was criticized by Israeli diplomatic official Yuval Waks, who said he hoped to see a “stronger condemnation” of Hamas.
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Xi and Schumer also discussed economic relations between the U.S. and China and the fentanyl crisis in America. Much of the fentanyl that makes its way into the U.S. is sourced from China, according to the Department of Justice.
“We have 1,000 reasons to make China-U.S. relations work well and not a single reason to make China-U.S. relations bad,” Xi said, adding that he hoped there could be a “peaceful coexistence” between the two nations.
Tensions have been high between the U.S. and China in recent months, especially after the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon making its way across the continental U.S.