Short answer: No. As of August 2026, Xi Jinping has never expressed personal support for Israel, has never visited the country, and China's political stance under his leadership has consistently favored Palestinian statehood while declining to call Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack terrorism. China maintains a large trade relationship with Israel (about $33 billion in 2025) and its ambassador in Tel Aviv has made warm gestures, but that is government-to-government commerce and diplomacy, not a personal or ideological alignment from Xi with Israel.
What Xi Jinping has actually said and done
October 8, 2023: In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, China's foreign ministry issued a statement that did not name or condemn Hamas, calling instead for "relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities." Xi himself did not address the session, as tracked by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and later noted by The Hill.
October 19, 2023: Xi made his first direct public comment on the war, during a meeting with Egypt's prime minister in Beijing. He called for a ceasefire and said a two-state solution creating "an independent state of Palestine" was the "fundamental way out" of the conflict, per VOA News.
March 22, 2024: China, alongside Russia, vetoed a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution that demanded an immediate Gaza ceasefire tied to a hostage-release deal. Beijing argued the ceasefire should not be conditioned on hostage negotiations, and its ambassador framed the veto as insufficiently favorable to Palestinians, not as support for Israel's position, as the Washington Post reported.
May 30, 2024: At the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing, Xi pledged $69 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza plus $3 million to a UN refugee agency, again calling for an independent Palestinian state and saying "war should not continue indefinitely," according to Fox News.
June 17, 2025: When Israel and Iran exchanged strikes, Xi called for both sides to "de-escalate the conflict as soon as possible," said Israel's military actions against Iran "deeply concern" China, and offered Beijing as a mediator, speaking at the China-Central Asia Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. The remarks were reported by the South China Morning Post.
February 6, 2026: After the Gaza fighting ended, China's ambassador to Israel hosted the embassy's first major reception since the war, publicly naming and expressing condolences for fallen hostage Ran Gvili and citing bilateral trade at a record $33 billion in 2025. This was an ambassador-level gesture, not a statement from Xi himself, per Israel Hayom and Calcalist.
May 19, 2026: China's Middle East special envoy Zhai Jun attended Israel's National Day reception and met with Israel's ambassador to China to discuss bilateral relations, part of routine diplomatic contact. No statement from Xi accompanied it, according to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The bigger picture
Xi Jinping has never visited Israel and has never met an Israeli prime minister on Israeli soil. The closest direct contact on record is Netanyahu's 2013 and 2017 visits to China, both with Xi in office; a planned Netanyahu trip to Beijing discussed in 2023 did not materialize as war broke out. Xi has made no personal statement of support for Israel and has consistently framed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through China's standing call for Palestinian statehood, a position unchanged since well before October 7, 2023.
At the same time, China under Xi has never joined or endorsed any boycott of Israel. Trade between the two countries kept growing through the war and reached roughly $33 billion in 2025. China remains one of Israel's largest trading partners in Asia, Chinese firms kept working on Israeli infrastructure projects, and flights between the two countries continued. Beijing's own framing, echoed at ambassador level, often leans on the historical fact that Shanghai sheltered roughly 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s and early 1940s, a point Chinese diplomats invoke often in bilateral messaging, though Xi has not personally cited that history in a statement about Israel.
The clearest strain in the record is China's reluctance, in the days after October 7, 2023, to describe the Hamas attack as terrorism, which drew public criticism from Israel and from members of the US Senate. China's UN Security Council votes on Gaza ceasefire resolutions have consistently sided against Israel's position, including the March 2024 veto of a US resolution Beijing considered too favorable to Israel. When Israel and Iran exchanged fire in June 2025, Xi called for de-escalation from both sides and offered China as a mediator, treating it as a regional stability issue rather than taking Israel's side.
The bottom line
Xi Jinping does not personally support Israel in any public or diplomatic sense. His statements consistently back Palestinian statehood and a ceasefire framework, and he avoided calling the October 7, 2023 attack terrorism. China has not boycotted Israel, and trade between the countries has grown to roughly $33 billion, but that reflects Beijing's broader economic interests and ambassador-level diplomacy, not a stance from Xi himself in Israel's favor.
Wearing your own answer
Where world leaders stay ambiguous, plenty of people prefer to be plain about it. Our I Stand With Israel collection is built for exactly that: pieces that say where you stand without needing a diplomatic statement to back them up.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
