China must help Syria!
According to the narrative rehashed by Western media, the Syrian war pitted a rebellion thirsting for democratic freedoms against an authoritarian state supported at arm’s length by its allies. For the falsely naive, a heroic “Syrian revolution” would even have stood against a clan and mafia power, guilty by definition of all imaginable crimes. “Democracy”, “revolution”, “human rights”, the entire repertoire of Western right-thinking, all the jargon unearthed behind the fagots of imperialism by hordes of scribblers, has been mobilized in the service of a propaganda whose sole aim was to justify, to an opinion which did not understand anything, the multifaceted intervention of the so-called “Friends of Syria”.
Designating the international coalition determined to liquidate the Syrian state, this name thus covered with an incredible euphemism the operation consisting of dubbing a constellation of terrorist groups whose loyalty to the cause depended on the thickness of the suitcase of banknotes. As is known, the main result of this massive interference was a decade of senseless and murderous war. Gigantic tribute paid to a collective madness orchestrated from abroad, which saw mercenaries of 120 nationalities flock to the Land of Cham dreaming of establishing a new “Islamic emirate” and promising to send “the Christians to Beirut and the Alawites at the cemetery.
Fortunately, and it did not take long to realize, this anti-Syrian coalition vassalized by Washington was only a paper tiger. Because many nations have rejected this new avatar of Western neocolonialism repainted in the colors of democracy and human rights. To all credit, the first to do so was the Iranian nation. A geographically close ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran immediately defeated the attempt to isolate Syria, even if it meant fighting with the West, their cronies and their auxiliaries. From sending military experts to financial aid, Tehran never failed Damascus during this long ordeal where Syrians learned to distinguish their true allies from their false friends.
Belonging to the axis of resistance alongside Lebanese Hezbollah and other components, the two states clearly have shared objectives and common adversaries. Their strategic alliance held firm despite the pessimistic predictions of those who took their wishes as realities. The harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United States have clearly not deterred Iran from faithfully fulfilling its obligations to its ally. But this regional configuration of resistance to imperialism could not accomplish the impossible. Of great strategic importance, Iranian aid would not have been enough to shift the balance of power. More was needed to repel the hordes of mercenaries and strengthen the Syrian state politically, economically and militarily.
By intervening militarily in September 2015, Russia broke the backs of the extremist militias mandated by the imperialist coalition. Equipped with modest means (5,000 men and 70 planes), but carried out masterfully, Moscow’s entry into the fray allowed the Syrian Arab army to gradually reconquer a large part of the national territory. Iranian solidarity and Russian intervention were the two pillars on which the Syrian state was able to lean to face the surge of Takfirist mercenarism.
The Chinese contribution to the defense of Syrian sovereignty, until now, has been much more discreet, but it has demonstrated great consistency. Deeper than we think, relations between Beijing and Damascus are not new. Following its independence (1946), Syria first turned towards the USSR. A rapprochement which resulted in the sending of Soviet military advisers and the establishment of a naval base in the port of Tartous in 1971.
But China is not forgotten. On August 1, 1956, Syria was the second Arab country, two months after Egypt, to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Ulcerated by the Suez colonial expedition, the Arab progressives see a privileged ally in the communist world, all tendencies combined. A little distant during the Sino-Soviet schism, relations between Beijing and Damascus intensified again at the end of the 1960s. A diplomatic renewal which resulted in a first arms supply agreement in 1969, the establishment of high-level military relations, soon followed by Chinese participation in the hydrocarbon sector.
Trade is growing, and in 2010 China became Syria’s leading supplier, with 7% of the total. A developing country with considerable potential, a strategic crossroads for oil and gas routes, Syria naturally has a vocation to cooperate with this great Asian power with its assertive pacifism, which has never compromised with the principles to which it claims.
Chinese officials have continually reiterated this. China resolutely supports Syria in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, improving the living conditions of its people, rejecting unilateral sanctions and alleviating humanitarian difficulties. China firmly opposes any attempt to impose regime change in Syria, and resolutely supports Syria in its fight against all terrorist forces.
In short, China is not the West. On the Chinese side, scrupulous respect for state sovereignty and international law; refusal of any interference and insistence on the need for a Syrian solution to the Syrian crisis; primary concern for the fate of civilian populations and the urgency of reconstruction; commitment to the Syrian state in the fight against extremism. On the Western side, absolute disregard for international law and systematic interference in Syrian internal affairs; indifference to the fate of populations taken hostage by criminal economic sanctions; hypocrisy in the fight against terrorism and collusion with extremist organizations.
Imagining that they were going to bring about its fall thanks to the so-called “Arab Spring”, Western leaders pretended to ignore the legitimacy enjoyed by the Syrian government. They thought that the regular army would disintegrate under the effect of mass desertions which never took place. Blinded by their orientalist reading of Syrian society, they believed it to be dominated by the Alawite minority. They pretended to believe in the legend of a heroic people raised against a desperate despot, while the legitimacy of President Assad was reinforced, on the contrary, by his determination to fight against the enemies of Syria.
While the willful myopia of the Western view of Syria shattered all records, the Chinese understood the true nature of the balance of power. In the West, the propagandist imagination silenced simple common sense. In China, common sense told its leaders that a state that successfully resists an attempt at destabilization of this magnitude is not about to collapse. The Russians made the same reasoning, and they intervened militarily to help their Arab ally.