Just more than one year ago, China gave then-Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife a warm welcome during their six-day visit to the country, offering the former Syrian leader a rare break from years of international isolation since the start of a civil war in 2011.
As the couple attended the Asian Games, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) vowed to support al-Assad in “opposing external interference” and in Syria’s rebuilding, while his wife Asma was feted in Chinese media.
However, the abrupt end to the rule of the authoritarian leader so explicitly backed by Xi only last year has dealt a blow to China’s diplomatic ambitions in the Middle East and exposed the limits of its strategy in the region, analysts said. A coalition of rebels seized Syria’s capital, Damascus, on Sunday last week after a lightning offensive that toppled al-Assad’s regime and ended his family’s 50-year dynasty.
“There’s been a lot of an exaggerated sense of China’s ability to shape political outcomes in the region,” Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow Jonathan Fulton said.
While the collapse of the al-Assad regime was seen reducing the influence in the Arab world of his main backers, Iran and Russia, it was also a blow for China’s global ambitions, Fulton said.
“A lot of what [China has] been doing internationally has relied on support with those countries, and their inability to prop up their biggest partner in the Middle East says quite a lot about their ability to do much beyond the region,” he said.
TACKLING HOTSPOTS
After China brokered a deal between long-time rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran last year, Chinese media praised Beijing’s rising profile in a neighborhood long dominated by Washington.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), China’s top diplomat, said the country would play a constructive role in handling global “hotspot issues.” China also brokered a truce between Fatah, Hamas and other rival Palestinian factions earlier this year, and has made repeated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
However, despite bringing Middle Eastern leaders to Beijing and rounds of “shuttle diplomacy” by Middle Eastern envoy Zhai Jun (翟雋), in the months since, Palestinians have not formed a unity government and the conflict in Gaza continues.
“Assad’s sudden downfall is not a scenario Beijing wishes to see,” Shanghai International Studies University Middle East scholar Fan Hongda (范鴻達) said. “China prefers a more stable and independent Middle East, as chaos or a pro-American orientation in the region does not align with China’s interests.”
The response by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to al-Assad’s fall has been muted; instead it is focusing on the safety of Chinese nationals and calling for a “political solution” to restore stability in Syria as soon as possible.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) on Monday appeared to leave an opening for engagement with the future government: “China’s friendly relations with Syria are for all Syrian people,” she said.
Chinese experts and diplomats said Beijing would now bide its time before recognizing a new government in Damascus.
It could use its expertise and financial muscle to support reconstruction, but its commitments are likely to be limited, because China has sought to minimize financial risks overseas in recent years, they said.
Syria joined China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative in 2022, but there have been no significant investments by Chinese firms since, partly due to sanctions.
China is “not really able to fundamentally replace the West either as an economic partner, or diplomatic or military force in the region,” said Bill Figueroa, assistant professor at the University of Groningen and an expert in China-Middle East relations.
“China in 2024 has way less money than China in 2013 to 2014, when the [Belt and Road Initiative] BRI was launched,” Figueroa said.
There is “an obvious reassessment going on in the direction of safer investments and reducing China’s risks overall,” he added.
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
RSS