Report: Ex-general to become new China envoy

A Cabinet minister and former general will become Israel’s next envoy to China, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, in a move indicating the growing importance of relations with the Asian superpower.

Matan Vilnai, who entered politics after a long military career and currently serves as the Cabinet minister in charge of preparing Israel’s home front for war, will assume the Beijing post in the summer, ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

This year Israel and China are marking twenty years of diplomatic relations. Israel currently has four diplomatic offices in China and plans to open a fifth, a consulate in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.

Vilnai’s appointment signals the importance of relations with China to Israel, Palmor said. “The fact that we’re appointing a minister shows these ties will be conducted at the highest level possible,” he said.

A longtime member of the centrist Labor Party, Vilnai left last year to join Defense Minister Ehud Barak in forming a new faction, Independence, which is currently part of the governing coalition. The faction, which lacks substantial public support, is not expected to survive the next general election.