China in Syria: Quietly Racing for Regional Influence

The new juncture in the Syrian conflict step by step unveils new aspects of the Syrian government and its supporters' victories against multi-faceted terrorism in a multi-fronted war. Various regional and international actors have been engaged in the conflict since its beginning nearly seven years ago.

China, as a global power, has decided to take a different stance in dealing with the Syrian crisis, however. Though closely monitoring the situation in Syria, the Chinese government, unlike the US counterpart, has decided to stay away from a direct military intervention in the war-ravaged country. It instead took a new intervention-evading way and only struggled to quietly realize its interests in Syria.

Beijing in 2011 took a passive position in the Libyan crisis, something made the Chinese place in Libya waver. This provided the Chinese leaders with a lesson to learn, making them give a shift to their attitude to another crisis, this time in Syria. Beijing actively but remotely involved through presenting security backing to the Damascus government, but staying away from the war scene. This approach worked like a supplement to the role of Russia, a player directly took action against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in late September 2015.

China and Silk Road strategy

An emerging power on the world stage, China is seeking to get a hegemonic position across the world, now that the US is losing its strength as an unchallenged global heavyweight, in a bid to play an active role on the world arena, with full independence from the Western approach. Due to a set of economic, security, and political observations, China sees it a need to secure its own role in the Syrian crisis. In fact, the active Chinese involvement is required because Beijing needs to check unilateral domination of the US over the region as an energy hub and transit line which can be exploited as a pressure tool against China at the hands of the Americans.

Responding to the American plans for regional dominance for the aim of isolating and putting strains on Beijing, China has steered clear of military engagement or even an arms race with the US. The alternative way is China’s pivoting westward and consequently bringing under focus the strategy of reviving the ancient Silk Road, and also developing the modern-time “maritime Silk Road.” This strategy has its own prerequisites, including bolstering ties with Russia, Central and West Asia, and also North Africa. The Chinese silent entry to the Syrian conflict falls under the foreign policy that serves Beijing’s “pivot to west” strategy.

Entry of China for example to the West Asia will build up geopolitical pressures on the US, beside being a very effective instrument to repulse the Washington’s geopolitical strains put on Beijing in the Far East. To put it differently, a long-term Chinese presence in West Asia will challenge the regional American sway, and will give the Chinese stronger trump cards in their encounter with the Americans in the Far East.

Counterterrorism policy

Another drive for Beijing to step in the Syrian crisis through sponsoring the central Syrian government’s counterterrorism efforts is a need to combat the phenomenon. The autonomous Chinese region of Xinjiang in the country’s northwest, which is home to the Uyghur ethnic minority, in recent years has been a Chinese hub of radical Islamist ideologies. In the past six years, this part of China has risen as the most important place from which ISIS has recruited a considerable number of its fighters who were deployed to the Syrian and Iraqi front lines in confrontation of the two countries' national armies.

Therefore, helping throttling the terrorism in Syria rises to be part of the long-term strategy of China to thwart part of the challenge of terrorism at home. Terrorist groups' victory in Syria could mean boosted terror cells in China’s northwestern regions. In past six years, this counterterrorism vision motivated the Chinese leaders to have Damascus back in face of terrorists through security cooperation, though they declined to intervene militarily. After all, the attempts by the US and its regional allies like Saudi Arabia to instrumentally take advantage of terrorism were on a collision course with the Chinese interests.

China and Russia presence in Syria: two sides of the same coin

China is trying to take a role in the West Asia region, and especially in Syria’s crisis, but it does not want to repeat the American model of intervention for interests. Beijing makes a comparison between the American and Russian behaviors in the region. While Washington arrogantly applies an interventionist policy in the regional developments, Moscow chooses the course of joint work with national governments towards shared security and respect to common interests as well as nations' demands and independence. Naturally, China chooses to copy the Russian model of regional influence.

A harmony of foreign policy pathways will produce further closeness between Moscow and Beijing, and even between these two and the Iran-headed Axis of Resistance. Along with its diplomatic and security support for the Syrian government, China is an advocate of the Russian anti-terror moves in Syria, something that will solidify the Moscow-Beijing camp and, on the opposite side, impair the American position in the region. Such an outlook will, in turn, bring forth many consequences for West Asia and also the Far East.