One of our favorite stories in respect of Communist China is the yarn about the visit to Beijing of the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat. In the course of the visit Arafat is finally ushered in to see the Chinese party boss, Chairman Mao. Once they are settled into their side-by-side arm chairs and the tea has been poured, Arafat turns to his host and says, “Mr. Chairman, what are we going to do about the Israelis?” 

Mao turns to his guest and replies: “Mr. Chairman, how many of them are there?”

“Mr. Chairman,” Arafat replies, “there are 5 million of them.” 

Mao nods thoughtfully: “Mr. Chairman,” he says, “what hotel are they staying at?”

Chairmen Mao and Arafat have long since gone to their graves, of course, but the gag keeps surfacing. We’ve always taken the tale, however apocryphal, to be a comment on not only Communist China’s size but also its hauteur, its aloofness, condescension, and even parochialism. All those are qualities that have rarely been more glaring than they are now, as the People’s Republic flounders onto the world stage.

China’s failure to side with Israel is a sign of its parochialism. Feature the rebuke by its foreign minister, Wang Yi, that “Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense,” and his demand that Israel end its “collective punishment” of Gazans. This followed Mr. Xi’s call for a ceasefire and the suggestion that a two-state solution is the “fundamental way out” of the conflict, CNN noted. 

China’s Middle East envoy, Zhai Jun, in remarks to his Russian counterpart, offered his view that “the fundamental reason” for the current war between Israel and Hamas “is that the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people have not been protected.” Such fecklessness by the People’s Republic points, Axios reports, to Beijing’s aim “to curry favor among Arab states and gain their support for China’s global agenda.”

The swing toward Hamas reflects Beijing’s aspiration to “legitimize authoritarian practices,” Axios adds, “and erode human rights protections on the international stage.” It’s part of China’s attempt, along with its ally Russia, “to promote alternative norms in global politics,” the Atlantic Council’s Jonathan Fulton observes, and the countries of the Arab world are seen “as a natural constituency for China to try to attract.” 

With Beijing’s malign intentions growing ever clearer, though, it’s increasingly hard to see the logic of President Biden inviting President Xi to America for talks. With Mr. Biden’s invitation pending for a November parley stateside, Beijing is planning an “American charm offensive” that, the Wall Street Journal reports, is meant “to prepare the way” for Mr. Xi’s first trip here in more than six years. Mr. Wang fetched up Thursday to arrange preliminaries.

The Communist envoy was, per VOA, slated to dine with Secretary Blinken Thursday evening and scheduled to meet with the president on Friday, ABC News reports. If so, what could Mr. Blinken have meant when he called Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel “a moment for moral clarity”? Wouldn’t our top diplomat be using this opportunity to carpet Mr. Wang over China’s obtuseness amid the current debacle? 

As for the prospect of according Mr. Wang the honor of a White House visit, it bodes poorly for the prospect of Mr. Biden maintaining the kind of backbone that Israel deserves from its ally during a time of trial for the Jewish state that could well persist for months to come. The White House’s excuse is that “they want the environment Xi Jinping enters to be less highly charged,” a former State Department official tells the Journal. Is that a joke?

The real subtext, Edward Luce writes in the Financial Times, is Mr. Biden’s aim to enlist China to “restrain Iran.” Good luck. Pleading wouldn’t be needed had Mr. Biden’s Iran policy not emboldened Tehran to begin with. Communist China, for its part, is sending hordes of “business, cultural and sports figures, including basketball star Yao Ming,” to New York ahead of Mr. Xi’s. Maybe Mr. Biden can find out at what hotel they’re staying.