Diplomatic Maneuver; Is China Serious About Launching Economic Projects in Syria?

The facts continue to confirm that the Chinese government and companies view Syria as a good place to invest, and a strategic purpose that meets Beijing's interests in the Middle East, as part of the race to compete with the United States.

This was translated by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's meeting with regime leader Bashar al-Assad on July 17, 2021, on the first visit by a senior Chinese official to Syria since 2011, when Beijing supported Assad in suppressing the Syrian revolution.

Wang reiterated China's position on opposing "any attempt to seek regime change in Syria," stressing that his country "will strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with Syria and support the acceleration of the country's reconstruction process."

According to the Syrian regime's SANA news agency, during the meeting, it was agreed to start a new phase in strengthening these relations, and discussed Syria's participation in the "Belt and Road" initiative, noting that the Chinese minister stressed his country's "interest in Syria's participation in this initiative."

 

Amplifying the Relationship

Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, China has adopted the narrative that the Assad regime is leading a battle against so-called "terrorism" and that attacks by Russian fighter jets are "legitimate and against terrorist targets."

Chinese President Xi Jinping's congratulations to Assad after he was declared the winner of an illegal presidential election in late May 2021 for the next seven years signaled an upcoming phase of support for Assad.

"China-Syria cooperation is looking forward to a new level," Russia’s TACC news agency reported in early June 2021.

China is aware of the Syrian regime's need at this stage as Assad looks for a "solid partner" that will help rotate the obstacle-ridden domestic economy.

But China's penetration into the world through its growing economic power suggests that Beijing, from a future geopolitical perspective, is on the way to making Syria a suitable environment for Chinese companies to operate.

China therefore views Syria as a key part of the Belt and Road initiative, also known as the 21st Century Silk Road, and aims to make huge investments to develop the infrastructure of global economic corridors to connect more than 70 countries.

The giant project aims to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through land and sea networks, in order to promote trade and economic growth.

Launched in 2013 by the Chinese president, the initiative is a project aimed at establishing a land belt of railways and roads across Central Asia and Russia, and a sea route that will allow China access to Africa and Europe across the China Sea and the Indian Ocean, at a total cost of $1 trillion.

Assad welcomes Chinese support for a new presidential term as he looks to take advantage of it more realistically, especially since access to external capital is "vital" for Syria's reconstruction, the international magazine THE DIPLOMAT said in a June 3, 2021 report.

Assad "has previously inflated the relationship with China as a way to prove that he is not diplomatically isolated and that he has a number of potential partners to support reconstruction efforts," the magazine said.

According to World Bank estimates, Syria's economy shrank by $226 billion from 2011 to 2016 -- twice the country's GDP, rising again in 2017 to $350-400 billion.

Even if Chinese investors and companies focus more on Syria, a clash with Russian and Iranian interests is strongly likely as a result of the acquisition of large-scale projects and contracts awarded to them by the regime over a decade, which could force Chinese companies to enter into a balance game with Moscow and Tehran's economic arms in Syria.

 

Flirting and a Message

Although the Syrian regime has tried to reopen Syrian markets and territory for Chinese projects that have not been new in the last decade, as the head of the Syria Economic Action Group, Osama al-Qadi, sees it, China "always clashes with the issue of The American Caesar Act."

"China's presence today is a political message rather than an economic one, especially since those who have gone are the foreign minister, not the minister of economy," Qadi told Al-Estiklal.

China "wanted to send a message to the United States that Beijing could consider investing in this region," he said, adding, "It's also flirting with Russia, maybe China wants to get into some projects."

"Syria is returning to form a negotiating paper on issues outside Syria's geography, and therefore the pressure on China and Russia by Washington and the West is intended," Qazi said.

China is part of a strong pro-Assad coalition, most notably within the corridors of the Security Council, and the use of a veto against draft resolutions by a group of countries on Syria that are fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Assad regime.

Since 2011, China and Russia have vetoed 16 times, aborting security council resolutions condemning the Syrian regime and its repressive practices against the people, and other humanitarian aid access to areas outside Assad's influence.

The most significant milestone in the Syrian scene is the use in February 2012 of Russia and China to veto a Western Arab draft resolution of the Security Council that supports the Arab League's call for the head of the Assad regime to step down after using the killing machine fiercely to suppress the revolution.

 

Chinese Strategy

According to observers, China has consistently pursued "secret agreements" with countries subject to international sanctions in the implementation of multiple projects in infrastructure, trade, transportation, energy, industry, services and the oil and gas industry.

They are described as sharing with China ways to support each other and circumvent U.S. sanctions, which they see as Washington's approach to imposing its foreign policy in the world.

The biggest example is an undisclosed economic partnership that China and Iran have unveiled in September 2019 some of its items.

China's investment includes $280 billion in Iran's oil and gas industry and $120 billion in the transport sector, with Chinese companies’ priority in implementing projects in the economically besieged country.

Analysts say the outbreak of the revolution against Assad's rule has generated a Chinese conviction that Syria is the "best option" for China to play a "fundamental role" in the Middle East that corresponds to its international standing, which has led it to expand the training and medical support program of Assad's forces over the last 10 years.

Chinese companies contribute to the fields of energy, electricity, building materials and medical devices in Syria, and present presentations at exhibitions held by the regime at the Damascus International Fair, and in 2018 talk of starting Chinese car production lines in Syria.

According to the Syrian-Chinese Relations Committee, trade in 2010 reached nearly $2.48 billion, in addition to engineering contracts worth $1.82 billion, and more than $1 billion since 2011.

 

Iranian Desire

Given that Chinese support for Assad has from the outset taken on a different character from Russia and Iran, the Chinese foreign minister's visit may be perhaps the "beginning of a transformation" in the relationship between China and the Syrian regime with Iranian will.

This is what The Imran Center for Strategic Studies researcher Mohammed al-Abdullah said, referring to Al-Estiklal, which attributed the reasons for China's active behavior toward Syria to overlap three key aspects.

First, "it relates to Beijing’s strategic partnership with Tehran, and a clear Iranian desire to expand Beijing's influence and throw its economic weight by playing a greater role in Syria in support of the Iranian presence and demonstrating its political and economic gains by taking advantage of the weight of Chinese influence."

The second aspect, Abdullah said, is linked to "China's desire to have a foothold in the reconstruction process in Syria and to ensure its opportunity in reconstruction contracts as soon as international consensus is reached in the future, given the funding and technical capacity of Chinese companies in infrastructure projects that qualify them to enter the process significantly."

"However, China's steps in this regard remain cautious, whether with their actual existence through contract signings or partnerships with local government and private parties; this is due to reasons related to security stability and international sanctions against the regime."

The third aspect, Abdullah said, belongs to the worker "linked to the geopolitical position of Syria's strategic position, which China sees as a future starting point for the initiative (Belt and Road) on which China is counting in the future to expand and control new markets for its products."

In addition, "trying to symbolically challenge U.S. hegemony in this region with alliances with both Russia and Iran, the main actors on Syrian soil."

 

Assad Promotes

In the face of these data, China's new diplomatic maneuver in Syria was preceded by Assad's tour within a close period of time for Syria's two most famous industrial cities, Adra in Damascus countryside and Hassia in Homs.

China's new presence and Assad's personal promotion of projects can be linked over two months (May-June 2021), which coincided with the enactment of new investment laws, to attract domestic or foreign capital, giving them an encouraging dimension.

The Syrian regime is counting on restoring the economic momentum of its industrial zone because of its distinctive strategic philosophy, so that neighboring countries (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon) mediate.

The city is also directly connected to the local regional road network, international lines and the railway network, as well as 40 km from the capital Damascus, facilitating the marketing of products.

Founded in 2004, Adra is described as the most important development in economic relations between Syria and China, an investment complex that housed about 600 factories and factories for about 200 Chinese companies in the form of a city to produce and distribute many industrial goods from Syria to 17 countries.

Adra, an area of 500,000 square meters, was a great opportunity for China to discharge its products and support its industries with large stores of its desired goods in European markets, which previously met urgent demands, especially since goods can be delivered for no more than 10 days while arriving from China requires about 40 days.

In June 2021, the Assad regime's Ministry of Industry confirmed that about half of state-owned public enterprises and more than a third of private enterprises were out of business.

In March 2021, the same ministry estimated the losses to the public and private industrial sector since 2011 at more than 600 trillion Syrian pounds.

Several factors therefore encourage China to rebuild the destroyed parts of Syria's industrial cities, ensuring that in the foreseeable future Beijing will achieve significant financial returns from the domestic drainage market in the forthcoming reconstruction phase.

"China has strategies in Syria and is known to enter countries, flood them with debt and control their economy through this dumping, especially since the Syrian economy is basically exhausted," said Firas Shaabo, a Syrian economist and university professor.

"China is trying to take advantage of the regime's need for funds and insufficient Russian and Iranian support for its economic recovery, and therefore is suffering from both, so he has taken refuge in China," he told Al-Estiklal.

Shaabo also agrees with the view: "What gave China a push forward to reactivate its role in the Syrian economy is its exploitation of the change of administration and President Joe Biden's reliance on a different approach to his predecessor Donald Trump in the attack."