When Bashar al-Assad fled Syria in December 2024, China’s long-standing bet on the regime’s survival collapsed. For years, Beijing had quietly backed Assad as a bulwark of state stability and counterterrorism. But with the regime’s fall, Chinese officials and civilians fled the country, fearing that they would be at the mercy of Islamist militias. In the weeks that followed, however, China’s worst-case scenario failed to materialize. Rather than descending into chaos, Syria began to coalesce around a caretaker government led by Ahmed al-Shara’a, the leader of Ha’yat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate. Beijing began cautiously reestablishing diplomatic channels in hopes of securing cooperation on counterterrorism, and its narrative on Syria shifted. On March 25, the Chinese ambassador to the UN acknowledged to the UN Security Council Syrian efforts to gain recognition and support. At the same time, the ambassador said that Beijing expects the new authorities to prevent terrorist groups, particularly those it accuses of harboring Uyghur fighters, from joining government ranks or having any base of operations in Syria. This is similar to the U.S. position against Iranian-linked militias.
China Struggles to Adjust to a Post-Assad Syria • Stimson Center
