Bashar al-Assad was an ally of both Iran and Russia, Beijing's key partners. Here is how his fall is being seen in China.
There is too much power in the hands of the US and regional actors like Turkey for China to play a key role After Russia and Iran's regional power projection, China's diplomacy is the most visible victim of the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at the hands of a coalition of rebel forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called for international efforts to prevent Syria from descending into further division and another refugee crisis, responding on Friday for the first time to the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad's Beijing-friendly regime last week.
However, with the downfall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and the catastrophic loss of Hamas and Hezbollah during its war against Israel, Tehran faces mounting geopolitical threats with splintered regional proxies.
"I believe there will be violent fighting, the end of which we do not know," a top Syrian Democratic Council official told Newsweek.
China’s leadership is not happy about the fall of Assad. But compared to Russia and Iran, Beijing had far less at stake.
The TIP has been based in Syria for more than a decade, with its members fleeing to the Middle East to escape China’s severe oppression of the Uyghurs, a largely Muslim minority group. Its fighters joined Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the rebel offensive, in a thrust out of the north-west of Syria.
A top Chinese envoy has warned Damascus's new government not to support terrorism as a Syria-based Islamic militant group sent messages to Muslims in China's Xinjiang region, urging them to wage attacks.
Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since February, 2021, when a military junta overthrew the country’s semi-democratic government in a coup
Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a Uyghur militant group based in Syria, declares its intent to fight China after aiding the Syrian rebel offensive
During Monday’s Chinese Foreign Ministry press briefing, Mao Ning was grilled by journalists from China-Arab TV, Anadolu Agency, and AFP about the sudden collapse of Assad’s regime. Questions focused on the future of Sino-Syrian relations,
Russia has accelerated its military withdrawal from Syria and suspended a grain deal with the country over concerns about the rebel-led government.