Is the current PRC friendly to Israel? It's hard to come to this conclusion considering its continued support of anti-Israel regimes in the Middle East. I have no doubt that they are quite adept at persuading greedy businessmen who simply want big profits anyway. But it is still an extremely risky and foolish thing to do, and that doesn't even address the fact that selling to such a regime constitutes a terrible chillul HaShem.
Again, however, I would like to point out that our own government doesn't seem overly concerned with China when Israel isn't around to play the whipping boy, and our own president, who was re-elected primarily by Israel supporters, is getting ready to play footsie with Hamas. I don't suppose playing of the China Card has anything to do wtih this little act of betrayal . . . do you???
you're right about what happened under Mao and Israel-China ties didn't really warm up until after Deng took over in the 80's. But still, history lesson is just that - Israelis appreciated what Chinese did for them in WWII and that's where the fundamental ties come from.
And, you're wrong -- China when it was fighting the Japanese was both, communists and nationalists. BOth side blame each other for fighting not as hard, though :) Communists won the civil war afterwards because the Nationalists lost popular support (it was pretty corrupt at the time)
Furthermore, i don't think Israel trust the US that much given our own wavering support for them from time to time. Every time a new president is elected, foreign policy changes. How can we conduct diplomacy when we don't have a consistent message?