China brings Syria back on to the world stage with a red carpet welcome

At the end of September, Beijing rolled out the red carpet for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, marking a rare foreign outing for a leader reviled for using mass torture, executions, and chemical weapons against civilians during the civil war. Assad and his wife Asma Fawaz al-Assad flew into Hangzhou on an Air China plane. In that city, he watched Asian Games events and met Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, before flying on to Beijing for more high-level meetings.

The visit signified a significant upgrade of the Syrian-Chinese relationship, offering Assad an opportunity to get as close as he can to China. In exchange for Assad’s reaffirmation of China’s core principles, including framing its repression of mostly-Muslim Uyghurs as “counter-terrorism”, Xi pledged to assist in rebuilding Syria’s economy and addressing domestic unrest. Furthermore, Xi called on the West to lift sanctions on Syria.

Assad has desperately wanted Chinese help to rebuild for years — even doing some far-fetched lobbying for Chinese tourism back in 2018. With Western help out of the question and Russia tied up in Ukraine, China is Assad’s best bet for domestic recovery and international rehabilitation.

Before the war, prospects were promising. Assad’s quest for foreign economic investment gathered up $3 billion of Chinese assets, with major Chinese oil companies like CNPC and Sinopec signing agreements to develop the country’s oil fields.

But when war broke out in 2011 China kept its distance as part of its non-interference policy, instead supporting mediation efforts by multilateral bodies like the Arab League, UN special envoys and the Kofi Annan Foundation.

China is typically frugal with financial aid, and Aiddata’s records show its assistance to Syria from 2011 to 2017 was just $74 million — meaning in that time the world’s second-largest economy gave just 1.2% of the total from the world’s largest, the U.S.

Needless to say civil wars are bad for business, and although Chinese investment and trade fell during the conflict, it still persisted. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recorded bilateral trade at $427 million in 2022, imports to China a modest $20 million.

China’s direct involvement in Syria has primarily been in bolstering national security, and seeking to safeguard its own interests.

An estimated 5,000 Uyghurs from Xinjiang were recruited by the Islamic State in Syria, the Associated Press (AP) reported in 2017. “We didn’t care how the fighting went or who Assad was,” one of them told AP at the time. “We just wanted to learn how to use weapons and then go back to China.” Chinese state media highlighted the Syrian training of Uyghur terrorists, and that the violence in Syria risked spilling over into China. This prompted China to become more involved in Syria, helping to train Assad’s military, and to intensify its campaign of repression in Xinjiang.

Founded: April 17, 1946

Population: 23.2 million

Government: Constitutional Democracy (de jure), Dynastic Dictatorship (de facto)

Capital: Damascus

Largest City: Damascus

Established relations with the P.R.C.: August 1, 1956

China has also used the Syrian crisis to push its own interests on the international stage. In 214, Beijing proposed its own peace plan emphasizing Syrian self-determination and national reconciliation, with Foreign Minister Wáng Yì 王毅 taking the opportunity to urge nations to take a “just, balanced, impartial approach” to Syria — a veiled criticism of Western attempts to topple Assad.

China has also used the UN security council veto ten times since the war started, blocking demands for sanctions on Assad’s regime, to get the International Criminal Court involved, and that Syrian authorities stop using force against civilians.

Despicably, since 2017 China has repeatedly abstained from allowing UN humanitarian aid to enter the country, despite such aid being one of its own peace plan’s key tenets.

China’s UN ambassadors give various explanations, citing respect for Assad’s refusal of UN aid in the name of national sovereignty, advocating non-interference in domestic affairs, and characterizing sanctions as counterproductive and biased.

China has continuously criticized “illegal” deployment of U.S. troops in Syria, but praised Russia’s, insisting the key difference is that Russia was invited by Assad. They usually vote the same way Russia does on the UN security council, and in July were the only member to back Russian aid proposals. As international relations expert Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University pointed out at the start of the conflict, China’s actions in Syria are partly motivated to “strengthen ties with Russia.”

China started advocating its own plans for Syria’s recovery after the U.S. withdrew in 2017. Chinese tech giant Huawei already had a deal going in 2015 to rebuild Syria’s telecoms, and in 2017 Beijing began hosting trade fairs for reconstruction projects, also pledging $2 billion to develop infrastructure and industrial parks in the country.

There’s a lot of talk about future plans and opportunities: The Syrian-Chinese Business Council touts Syria’s war ruins as a vast building opportunity, where “Chinese companies will have the largest share,” and there’s been talk of Chinese investment for building a railway from Lebanon into Syria.

But with Syria’s poor economy and continued instability, it’s unclear if Chinese businesses will risk a return yet. Some stirrings have been observed in Sinopec’s long-suspended Syrian branch, and Sinopec is a company used to operating in dangerous parts of the world. But there’s very little besides that.

Currently Syria’s true value to China lies in its role as a staunch ally on the international stage. Assad has thanked China for its “support in international forums,” reciprocating whenever possible. Consequently, not only is his government one of the usual suspects defending China’s human rights record, but it also stands alongside the very few nations to officially condemn Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, joining key allies Iran and Russia.

Syria serves as a stark example of the dangers in China’s arguments (or sophistries) of mutual respect for territorial sovereignty and non-intervention. By respecting a tyrant’s wishes you respect his wish to help himself and himself only, as attested to when he invited the Russians in and kept UN aid out. But China got a firm ally out of it.