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A Chinese diplomat beams with satisfaction as an unlikely world leader smiles while leafing through a book dedicated to Xi Jinping Thought, plucked from a box on the desk that separates the pair.
The remarkable photo was taken a little over a year ago, in July 2023. The leader is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the diplomat is Cai Run, at that time the Chinese ambassador in Tel Aviv.
It was taken at a moment of relative stability in bilateral relations: Cai was brokering a visit to Beijing by Netanyahu that would have been designed to send a message to US President Joe Biden at a point when his relations with the Israeli government had come under strain.
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Around about the same time, in a previously unreported effort to curry favour in Beijing, Netanyahu had sent a copy of his own memoir - Bibi: My Story - to the Chinese leader.
"If the war hadn't happened, if October 7 [the Hamas attack on Israel] hadn't happened, the massacre and the invasion that we're in, then remember that Netanyahu would have visited China," said Tuvia Gering, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council specialising in relations between China and Israel.
Cai presents Benjamin Netanyahu a volume dedicated to the Chinese leader's thoughts. Photo: X/@IsraeliPM alt=Cai presents Benjamin Netanyahu a volume dedicated to the Chinese leader's thoughts. Photo: X/@IsraeliPM>
Had Netanyahu gone to Beijing, Gering said, Israel's ties with China would probably have been upgraded to the "strategic" level, as they were with the Palestinian Authority in June of last year, "because they always like to raise and match".
"Cai Run perhaps could have come out as a hero overseeing this upgrade in relations," Gering added.
Fast forward to today: China's relationship with Israel is in tatters after Beijing became the most prominent global supporter of Palestine following the invasion of Gaza.
Cai, meanwhile, landed in Brussels on Friday to take up his post as China's ambassador to the European Union, charged with recharging Beijing's standing there.
While the situation is less dramatic than the one he left in Tel Aviv, war will also be top of the agenda of every meeting Cai has as the EU's efforts to support Ukraine run up against China's close ties to Moscow.
