{"id":17900,"date":"2023-09-23T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T21:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=17900"},"modified":"2023-09-23T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T07:44:30","slug":"syrias-president-bashar-al-assad-visits-china-for-first-time-in-two-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/syrias-president-bashar-al-assad-visits-china-for-first-time-in-two-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria\u2019s President Bashar Al Assad visits China for first time in two decades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad arrived in China on September 21, 2023, for his first-ever trip to the country in almost two decades. Assad visited China to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, along with other foreign attendees.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assad\u2019s trip to China is another step for Beijing towards increasing its reach in the Middle East. China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Assad\u2019s visit would \u201cfurther deepen political mutual trust and cooperation in various fields between the two countries and push bilateral relations to a new level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assad\u2019s office said earlier that the Syrian leader was invited by Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has backed Assad during the 12-year-long civil in Syria. China has used its veto power in the United Nations on eight different occasions to stop a resolution against Assad\u2019s regime in Syria, with the latest one in 2020. Now when his government is taking control of the oil-rich Middle Eastern state, Beijing is deepening its relations further with his regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assad\u2019s last and only visit to China was in 2004, a year after the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq and at a time when Washington was putting pressure on Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Meeting with Xi Jinping<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the second day of his trip, the Syrian President met Chinese President Xi Jinping at a state guest house near the West Lake, a scenic tourist destination in Hangzhou that has inspired Chinese painters for centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a readout released by the Chinese state-owned media, Xi told Assad “Today, we will jointly announce the establishment of the China-Syria strategic partnership, which will become an important milestone in the history of bilateral relations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chinese<\/a>
Chinese President Xi Jinping, fifth from right, talks to Syrian President Bashar Assad, fifth from left, during a bilateral meeting in Hangzhou, China, on September 22, 2023. (Image Credit: Liu Bin\/Xinhua\/via AP)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“Faced with an international situation full of instability and uncertainty, China is willing to continue to work together with Syria, firmly support each other, promote friendly cooperation, and jointly defend international fairness and justice,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Syrian sources quoted Assad as he thanked China for being with Syrians \u201cduring the crisis and suffering\u201d. The Arab leader\u2019s visit to China is a bid to end more than a decade of diplomatic isolation under Western sanctions and boost commercial ties with the world\u2019s second-largest economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Acceptance of Assad\u2019s regime<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Damascus\u2019s evident victory in Syria\u2019s decade-long internal war, several regional actors have been trying to mend their relations with the Assad regime, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad visited Saudi Arabia on an invitation from his counterpart in Jeddah. This was the first time that a Syrian foreign minister met a Saudi counterpart since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Bashar Al Assad in Moscow. Russia has been playing a major role in brokering a deal between Turkey and Syria as the civil war comes to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Syrian<\/a>
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and First Lady Asma Assad arrive in Hangzhou, China, on September 21, 2023. (Image Credit: Huang Zongzhi\/Xinhua)<\/sup><\/em>

<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

China to help reconstruction in Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has offered to help reconstruct war-torn Syria with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announcing the formation of a strategic partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China’s foreign ministry said that the two countries have reached a “new level” of cooperation. “China and Syria have a traditional and deep friendship,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.  “We believe that President Bashar Al-Assad’s visit will further deepen mutual political trust and cooperation in various fields between the two countries,” she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Asian Games diplomacy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several world leaders have arrived in Hangzhou to attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games. The King of Cambodia, the crown prince of Kuwait, and the prime ministers of Nepal, East Timor, and South Korea are among the notable figures to attend the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After finishing his meeting with the Syrian president, Xi also met with Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah at the same venue. China\u2019s President Xi said that he would work with him to take bilateral relations between the two countries to a new level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad arrived in China on September 21, 2023, for his first-ever trip to the country in almost two decades. Assad visited China to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, along with other foreign attendees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,44,1],"tags":[317,137,380,45,75,208,215,356,71,13,625],"class_list":["post-17900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-arab","tag-asia","tag-asia-pacific","tag-china","tag-conflict","tag-diplomacy","tag-kuwait","tag-middle-east","tag-politics","tag-syria","tag-united-nations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Chinese-President-Xi-Jinping-with-Syrian-President-Assad.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-4EI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17900"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17911,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900\/revisions\/17911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}