Last update:December 23, 2024, 2:18 p.m. IST

China, which has made solid investments in Syria in order to strengthen its position in the Middle East, now seems battered. Beijing will have to reassess its support for Iran and Russia in the region

As for the United States and the European Union, they risk thwarting China’s attempts to expand its diplomatic presence in the Middle East and beyond. (Reuters file photo)

China must recalibrate its strategy in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, which was strongly supported by Iran and Russia – on which Beijing may have relied too much.

China, which has made solid investments in Syria in order to strengthen its position in the Middle East, now seems battered. Beijing will need to reevaluate its support for Iran and Russia in the region.

What have been Sino-Syrian relations?

In September 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping rolled out a red carpet for Assad and his wife, Asma, who made a six-day visit to the country with fanfare. The Assads were guests of Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou.

China was just the sixth country visited by Assad since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Some say Xi Jinping’s red carpet welcome to Assad and the signing of a “strategic partnership” agreement between the two countries showed how “imperial” Beijing was. rewarded “loyal” Damascus for officially joining the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) earlier in 2022.

Additionally, Beijing has also provided a diplomatic shield to Assad by blocking several United States Security Council (UNSC) resolutions in recent years.

China’s top envoy, Wang Yi, has pledged to bring peace to troubled global “hot spots” and has sent diplomats to the Middle East in recent years. Beijing also called for an end to “collective punishments” inflicted on Palestinian civilians by Israel.

According to a report by the Cyprus-based consultancy Center for Operational Research and Analysis (COAR), after the Syrian government’s victory against rebel forces in Aleppo in 2016, China’s financial aid to Damascus increased 100-fold. , going from $500,000 to $54 million in just 2016. one year. In addition, Beijing has also made long-term investments in Syrian oil and gas, totaling $3 billion.

What does the fall of Assad mean for China?

The most obvious reason for assuming that Syria was important to Beijing was China’s use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) at key moments in the Syrian civil war to support the Assad regime. China has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions relating to the Syrian civil war eight times.

Syria’s civil war also complicated Beijing’s response to the Arab Spring. Thousands of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from western China – mainly Xinjiang – have traveled to Syria to fight alongside al-Qaeda against the Syrian government.

A Uyghur fighter quoted in a 2017 AP article was quoted as saying, “We didn’t care how the fighting was going or who Assad was. We just wanted to learn how to use these weapons and then return to China. » A defeated Syrian government would therefore have serious potential repercussions for Beijing.

In fact, China has not made any major contracts or investments in Syria since 2010, according to the Atlantic Council. The peak of Sino-Syrian trade over the past 15 years was in 2011, when it was valued at around $2 billion. In 2022, that was just $541 million. Chinese companies have no shortage of attractive markets in the Middle East, and Syria has not been one of them for a long time.

What is China worried about?

Experts and columnists in China’s mainstream media are concerned about China’s growing interests in the Middle East as an economic guide and investor. Should China interfere in the region’s politics and how can we prevent the United States from disrupting Beijing’s plan?

Social media posts have also criticized China’s seemingly over-the-top diplomatic achievements in the region, including the Beijing-brokered truce between the main rival Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas earlier this year, and the surprise “diplomatic détente” between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March 2023.

“Beijing wants to expand its influence in the Middle East, and Syria is an important point of support for that,” said Heng He, a US-based news commentator, in a recent interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA ) Mandarin. “At the very least, this is a huge setback for the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to strengthen its influence…by gaining allies or supporting certain forces in the Middle East,” he said.

China’s absence at the Jordan summit could also suggest that the “new masters” in Syria do not believe that China can play a neutral role in the transition. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which were the main participants at the summit, may now view China as a neutral actor. irrelevant.

As for the United States and the European Union, they risk thwarting China’s attempts to expand its diplomatic presence in the Middle East and beyond. Beijing has helped the Iranians overcome sanctions and political pressure imposed by the United States in recent years, the newspaper reports. South China Morning Post (SCMP).

This also means that China has indirectly become part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, meaning that it is an adversary of Israel, the United States and their allies. SCMP reported.

In all this chaos, Turkey has become an important player in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Thus, the growing diplomatic action between Washington and Ankara on the future of the region.

“While the United States, Turkey and Israel appear to have the upper hand in the current dynamics in the Middle East, it is difficult to imagine how China can find some diplomatic room to maneuver,” he added. . SCMP said.