What the autumn of the Assad regime actually means for China

Should you’ve been intently following China within the Center East over the previous decade, you haven’t needed to suppose an excessive amount of about Syria. There was little in significant engagement between the 2 nations, regardless of current pronouncements that the autumn of former Syrian chief Bashar al-Assad’s regime represents the lack of an vital companion for Beijing. The truth is that the dramatic occasions in Syria reshape the strategic surroundings for China, however on the bilateral degree, little is more likely to change.  

The obvious purpose to imagine that Syria was vital to Beijing was China’s use of its United Nations Safety Council (UNSC) veto at key factors in Syria’s civil conflict to prop up the Assad regime. China vetoed UNSC resolutions referring to the Syrian civil conflict eight occasions, which is particularly notable since Beijing has solely ever used its veto sixteen occasions. That totally half of its vetoes had been used to forestall efforts to oust Assad lends credibility to the concept that his authorities should have mattered to China.  

On this case, China’s assist for the Assad regime was seemingly extra about perceived threats than any affinity for the Assad household. When the Arab Spring started, China was dealing with a substantial amount of home unrest. The conditions in Tibet and Xinjiang had been untenable for the Chinese language Communist Celebration (CCP), and there was large pushback towards corruption, with a median of 5 hundred “mass incidents” (CCP-speak for protests) per day in 2010. Revolutions within the Arab world heightened a way of vulnerability amongst CCP management.  

Syria’s civil conflict additional difficult Beijing’s response to the Arab Spring. Hundreds of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from western China—largely from Xinjiang—traveled to Syria to battle alongside al-Qaeda towards the Syrian authorities. For the CCP, the prospect of rebels combating in Syria after which returning dwelling was particularly troublesome. One Uyghur combatant quoted in an AP information article in 2017 reportedly mentioned, “We didn’t care how the combating went or who Assad was. We simply needed to discover ways to use the weapons after which return to China.” A defeated Syrian authorities, due to this fact, had critical potential repercussions for Beijing.  

Another excuse that Assad’s survival appeared vital to China was a current improve in China-Syria bilateral engagement. In January 2022, Assad introduced that Syria had joined the Belt and Street Initiative (BRI). This appeared like a pure match; the BRI is related to infrastructure contracting and Syria had a dire want for infrastructure after a decade of conflict. Nonetheless, the idea that Chinese language establishments had been prepared to finance unprofitable initiatives in high-risk environments has not mirrored the fact since 2017, the excessive level of BRI lending. Actually, China had not made any main contracts or investments in Syria since 2010. Much more telling is the miniscule degree of commerce between the 2 nations. The height of China-Syria commerce over the previous fifteen years was in 2011, when it was valued at roughly two billion {dollars}. In 2022, it was a mere $541 million. Chinese language firms don’t have any scarcity of engaging markets within the Center East, and Syria hasn’t been one in every of them for a very long time.

That mentioned, Assad did go to China in September 2023 to attend the Asian Video games, throughout which he signed a China-Syria strategic partnership settlement. However a strategic partnership is much from an alliance—it’s a mechanism that Beijing makes use of to give attention to areas of mutual curiosity and comes with no commitments aside from to cooperate on points the place it’s handy.  

To place this in context, sixteen of the Arab League’s twenty-two member states have strategic partnerships with China. The one member nations that don’t are Comoros, Lebanon, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Since Syria signed its settlement with Beijing final yr, Tunisia and Libya have additionally been designated as strategic companions and Bahrain has develop into a complete strategic companion with China. However there’s little in the best way of strategic engagement with any of those current partnerships, which makes it appear like Beijing is just ticking diplomatic bins at this level, in an effort to point out it has deep ties with everybody within the Center East and North Africa area. All of which is to say that Syria’s strategic partnership was not particularly significant, and little had been performed to boost the bilateral relationship because it was introduced.  

Thus, China-Syria ties had been much less vital than they appeared from the headlines. However the collapse of Assad’s regime is however troubling for Beijing due to what it says about Russia and Iran, two of China’s rather more vital companions. That neither Moscow nor Tehran was capable of prop up Assad any longer demonstrates their diminished energy. Leaders in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have been cooperating bilaterally, trilaterally, and multilaterally via BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Group, all with the objective of advancing a multipolar worldwide order. Neither Russia nor Iran appear like poles of energy or affect proper now, and Chinese language leaders must be anxious about each nations’ power and sturdiness.   

As for China’s general presence within the Center East, not a lot will change within the close to time period. As I’ve argued earlier than, China is primarily an financial actor within the Center East and its relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council nations and Egypt are the load-bearing pillars of its regional coverage.  This won’t be severely affected by occasions in Syria.  

Will China’s assist for Assad topic Beijing to blowback from Syria’s new leaders? Syrians who noticed photographs of a smiling Assad with Chinese language chief Xi Jinping little doubt resent that China lengthy legitimized his brutal oppression and repeatedly used its UNSC veto in assist of his authorities. On the similar time, China is just not on the high of the checklist of probably the most hated exterior actors amongst Syrians; Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah have that distinction. The incoming Syrian authorities would possibly take a look at China the identical approach the Taliban did: as a presumably helpful however not particularly reliable nation. If Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has issue constructing relations with america and Europe, then Syria’s new leaders could also be prepared to miss China’s ties to the outdated regime because it seems to be for worldwide companions.  

In brief, the top of the Assad period makes the Center East much more difficult for Beijing, nevertheless it doesn’t undermine China’s regional presence or threaten its most vital regional relationships.  

Jonathan Fulton is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Center East Applications and the Scowcroft Center East Safety Initiative and an affiliate professor of political science at Zayed College in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 

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Picture: FILE PHOTO: Insurgent fighters sit on a car, after rebels seized the capital and ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Picture