(TibetanReview.net, Jun11’24) —China is known to expects those who have emigrated abroad and their offspring to consider themselves as Chinese first and owe their primary loyalty to their country of origin, speaking up for them whenever any occasion arises. But not, it seems, if you are only half-Chinese, unless you are someone like US-born and bred Eileen Gu who competed and won top medals for China at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
This issue arises in the wake of reports that China refused to help Israel Defence Forces in their efforts to secure the release of the hostage Noa Argamani, who was rescued from captivity in a daring and tragically costly Israeli operation in Gaza on Jun 9.
Israeli forces rescued 26-year-old China-born Noa Argamani, along with three others, after she was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct 7 and had been held hostage by Hamas terrorists for eight months. Like Olympian Eileen Gu, Noa’s mother, Liora Argamani, is Chinese. She went to study in Israel in 1994, where she met her husband, Yaakov. Liora, born in Wuhan as Ching Hong Li, is currently hospitalized, fighting terminal brain cancer, reported allisrael.com Jun 9.
Olympian Eileen Gu was not even born in China and no questions have been raised about her citizenship, and yet she is celebrated there for her Olympic medals for the country. However, China-born Noa languished in Hamas captivity because Beijing would not accept her Chinese-ness for the apparent reason that its sympathy was with her captors or their supporters.
The report said Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Beijing made numerous efforts to convince China to assist in efforts for Noa’s release; however, the Chinese government refused to address the issue.
China was obligated to help her because Chinese law automatically extends citizenship to children born in China with one Chinese parent, Minyao Wang, a New York-based trial attorney with Reid Collins law firm, has said. Nevertheless, the report cited one Chinese official as saying Noa was “only half Chinese” and “lacked Chinese blood,” and this was used as a rationale to refuse assistance.
“In light of what we know about Noa, her mother, and Chinese nationality rules, it is reasonable to surmise that Noa has Chinese citizenship in the eyes of Chinese law. That would, under international law, impose legal and moral obligations on China to work for Noa’s release. Having conferred citizenship on her and not recognizing her Israeli nationality as a matter of domestic law, China is legally required to assist her at a time of distress. But given the geopolitical factors in play here, it is unlikely Beijing will honour its obligations,” Wang has previously written.
Humanitarian pleas also went unanswered, and Chinese state media did not report on the abduction of an Israeli-Chinese individual, noted ynetnews.com Jun 8.
The allisrael.com report said that throughout the eight months of captivity, China refused to deal with Noa’s case despite repeated pleas from Israeli officials on her behalf. In December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) he had “invited the Chinese ambassador and asked him to convey a direct message to President Xi Jinping regarding hostage Noa Argamani, who was taken along with her partner,” adding that he sought Xi’s intervention in Argamani’s case.
The report said that since Oct 7, China had blatantly supported and sided with Hamas, despite the deep ties that Israel had cultivated with China over the past decades.