Geopolitics and Non-Western Intervention in Syria: China and Israel
13 Dec 2016
By Luke Patey and Helle Malmvig for Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
These two articles external pageChina, the Syrian Conflict, and the Threat of Terrorism and external pageIsrael´s Conflicting Interests in the Syrian War were published by the external pageDanish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in December 2016.
China, the Syrian Conflict, and the Threat of Terrorism: Geopolitics and Non-Western Intervention in Syria
By: Luke Patey
China has a global agenda in Syria. Beijing rejects foreign military intervention to force regime change, but is not wedded to any particular outcome in the conflict.
Recommendations
■ If western governments want Beijing’s support on Syria, they need to recognize their trust deficit on humanitarian intervention and focus on advancing a political solution that underpins long-term stability.
■ China should enhance its humanitarian assistance in the region and has a potential large role in post-conflict Syria.
■ China and western governments should intensify dialogue on counterterrorism policies in Syria and the Greater Middle East.
China is hungry to demonstrate its growing role in global peace and security. Beijing’s position on the Syrian conflict is largely guided by its wish to steer the global normative agenda away from foreign military intervention in domestic conflicts and towards prioritizing political settlements and upholding state sovereignty. As such, China is pushing back against what it sees as a western-led initiative to exploit humanitarian crises to fulfil geopolitical objectives.
China holds up protracted instability in Libya following the 2011 NATO intervention, and the subsequent ousting of the Gaddafi government, as the main exhibit in its case against outside military action in Syria. On Libya, Beijing abstained from the UN Security Council resolution establishing a no-fly zone to protect civilians. Chinese officials subsequently argued that American and European militaries vastly overstepped their mandate; a position supported by a recent UK government inquiry into the Libyan intervention.
On Syria, China has been broadly supportive of Russian resolutions in the UN Security Council that protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian government, and since 2011, Beijing has vetoed four western-launched resolutions alongside Moscow. Before the Syrian conflict, Beijing had only employed its veto ten times since 1971, and China’s increased use of the veto, demonstrates a more pronounced role in defending its positions.
China has been active in seeking a political settlement to the Syrian conflict. Beijing has backed peace plans moderated by the Arab League and the UN, participated in various talks over the past five years, and appointed a special envoy on Syria in 2016. China has also presented its own four-point plan in hopes of building momentum and unity among UN Security Council members to advance on a cease-fire and peaceful political transition.
But China’s engagement on Syria has not yet translated into significant results. Beijing has offered few concrete and novel ideas in solving the conflict and provided relatively little support to stem the humanitarian crisis in the region. Unlike Afghanistan, where Beijing is worried about a growing security vacuum on its western border, and devoting diplomatic attention and large amounts of financial aid, the Syrian conflict is not one that China is willing to commit serious energy and resources. Instead China may be waiting until after the fighting ends to provide financial aid and infrastructure cooperation during post-conflict reconstruction.
Balancing principles and interests
While its behaviour in the UN Security Council has favoured the Syrian government, China has tried to balance its interests in the conflict. China has hosted both the Syrian government and leading figures in the opposition in Beijing; steps to enhance and promote its engagement in the peace process, but also strategic moves to avoid being seen taking sides and hedging its bets on the conflict’s outcome.
China’s balancing act extends to relations with regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are supporting opposing sides in the Syrian conflict. China would like to position itself as a potential broker of regional disputes around Syria. But trying to maintain a neutral position has its drawbacks. Both the Syrian government and opposition, and their regional backers, may ultimately view Beijing as not doing enough to support their objectives. In 2012, for example, Chinese flags were burnt in Arab capitals after Beijing vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.
Among the foreign powers active in Syria, Beijing is regarded as the more passive partner to Russia in defending the Syrian government and President Assad from American and European intervention. Similar to Moscow, China stresses that Assad should be part of the peace process. Beijing viewed the softening of western calls in late 2015 for the Syrian leader to step down as a diplomatic victory and opportunity for the major powers to get on the same page.
Yet China’s position on Syria is not locked to that of Russia. Unlike Moscow, Beijing has few economic interests and political stakes invested with President Assad. Rather Chinese officials prioritise the maintenance of functioning government institutions. Beijing may regard Russia’s military intervention as legitimate based on its approval from the Syrian government, but it remains uneasy about the Russia’s heavy footprint. Chinese officials stress that military solutions cannot solve the conflict, but can only further destabilise the country and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
Fighting terrorism
Beijing fears that the Syrian conflict will serve to further inspire and globalize domestic terrorist groups. In recent years, longstanding tensions between the Chinese government and its Muslim, ethnic Uyghur population in north-western Xinjiang region have fomented into multiple terrorist attacks in China and on Chinese nationals and interests abroad. In Syria, several thousand Chinese nationals, mainly Uyghur, are estimated to have joined Jabhat fath al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) while hundreds are fighting with the Islamic State. China is not part of the international military coalition against the terrorist groups in Syria, but Beijing is collaborating with Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern governments on counterterrorism.
Beijing seeks to severe the links between terrorist groups in China with their international counterparts. It has pointed the finger at the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist and terrorist group, now called the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), for deadly knife attacks and suicide bombings across China in recent years. While western rights groups accuse Beijing of religious and cultural abuses against the Uyghur population, and conflating peaceful separatists with terrorists, the methods of the TIP are similar to Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.
Uyghur militants have been linked to the 2015 Bangkok bombing as well as the August 2016 suicide attack on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan. While Beijing’s focus is on its western border and threats emitting from Afghanistan and Central Asia, instability in Syria has opened another haven for terrorist groups seeking to harm China.
The military wildcard
China is the only member of the UN Security Council with no direct military activity in the Syrian conflict. After over a decade of watching the American military drain resources and become entangled in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Beijing prefers to maintain low-level engagement. But China still has an indirect military influence on the Syrian conflict. China was one of Syria’s largest arms suppliers before the conflict and has leveraged the position of the Syrian army on the battlefield through its political support on the UN Security Council. Similar to other outside powers, Chinese weapons have come into the hands of opposing sides in the conflict via sales to Iran, Saudi Arabia and other states in the region. The Chinese navy participated in the UN mandated removal of chemical weapons from Syria in early 2014 but at the same time, China’s largest arms manufacturer has been accused of selling chlorine gas to the Syrian government.
Military involvement to the same degree as the United States or Russia is still a non-starter for China. The People’s Liberation Army and the special forces of the People’s Armed Police still have limited capacity for long-range force projection, and little military and logistical experience overseas. But China’s arm’s length position on Syria to date may be evolving. The high-level visit of a Chinese rear admiral to Damascus in August 2016 signalled deeper official engagement; Chinese military advisors are providing weapons training to the Syrian army.
While improbable, direct military involvement from China in Syria should not be taken completely out of the equation in the coming years. If China’s security interests were threatened, a small-scale and short-lived military strike, sanctioned by the Syrian government, and likely in cooperation with Russia, could be made on China-linked terrorist groups operating in Syria. A new counterterrorism law permits Chinese security forces to be sent abroad. The expansion of China’s global security apparatus, including a naval presence in the Gulf of Aden and plans to build a base in Djibouti, as well as advancements in its military transport and drone capabilities, make such a move more feasible.
But Beijing’s response to a terrorist attack at home emanating from Syria will likely be a further tightening of security conditions in China and enhanced counter- terrorism cooperation with partner governments in the Middle East. In Syria, Beijing will continue to play a low-key role in trying to push forward a political settlement to the conflict, claim diplomatic victories where it can, and focus on protecting its normative position in global affairs.
About the Auhtor
Luke Patey is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Lead Senior Research Fellow on Africa at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute.
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Israel´s Conflicting Interests in the Syrian War: Geopolitics and Non-Western Intervention in Syria
By: Helle Malmvig
Israel’s activities in Syria have not drawn much attention due to Israel’s official policy of neutrality. Yet, over the last couple of years, Israel has stepped up its operations in Syria, targeting Iranian and Hezbollah assets and providing quiet assistance to the rebels.
Recommendations
■ Legitimacy problems and intense proxy warfare dynamics mean that Israel should only be minimally engaged in assisting rebel forces and local Syrians.
■ While observing its red line policy in Syria, Israel should heed the lessons of its intervention in the Lebanese Civil War, in order to avoid escalation dynamics and “mission creep.”
■ Israel may be effective in influencing US policy on Syria in a more pro-active direction, and continue providing intelligence and some humanitarian relief in the south.
From the very start, Israeli policy-makers have been divided internally over how to approach the complex and multi-sided conflict on their doorstep, and they have struggled to find a coherent policy response which would balance Israel’s multiple conflicting interests in Syria.
From “sitting on the fence” to low-intensity warfare
In the first two to three years of the Syrian conflict, Israel adopted what can be described as a “wait and see-policy”. In contrast to Western powers, the government did not side with the opposition, neither did it call for Assad to step down. In fact, in some diplomatic circles, the Assad regime was perceived as “the devil Israel knows”, who had kept the Israeli-Syrian border quiet for almost four decades, and who had served as a bulwark against Islamist parties potentially taking over governing power in Syria.
Yet, since the regime in Damascus is also a close ally of Hezbollah and Iran, making up the so-called “Resistance Front”, the government in Jerusalem was clearly in a double-bind. On the one hand, it would like stability and predictability along its border with Syria, but on the other hand, it would clearly prefer to see the power of the Resistance Front hamstrung. If the Assad regime were toppled, Iran would lose its influence in Syria, and the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah through Syrian territory would likely be halted. Without being able to square this dilemma, or significantly shape the situation on the ground, the Israeli government initially seemed content with pursuing an official policy of neutrality, or what some commentators called “a sitting-on-the-fence approach”.
However, over the course of 2013, as Iran and Hezbollah established a direct military presence on the ground in Syria, Israel grew increasingly concerned and began adjusting its Syrian policy. The fear was that so-called game-changing weapons would be transferred to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon via Syrian territory, and that Iran and Hezbollah would build a stronghold on the Syrian side of the Golan, in effect creating a second front or buffer zone there. In 2013, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) started targeting Hezbollah and Iranian operatives in Syria, bombing Hezbollah convoys allegedly carrying arms to Lebanon, and responding to fire from the Syrian regime or Hezbollah across the Israeli-Syrian border, thereby enforcing the Israeli government’s new so-called red lines.
The red line policy in effect means that IDF are engaged in low-intensity and largely covert warfare in Syria. Officially, the government does not comment on, or take direct credit for, the attacks on Hezbollah or Iranian assets, but only discloses its retaliatory fire across the border.
In 2013, Israel also secretly started giving medical treatment to wounded rebel fighters from Syria. Fighters were picked up at the border by the IDF, transported to Israeli hospitals for surgery, and then sent back into Syria. Up to 3500 Syrians – including women and children – have now been treated inside Israel. The medical aid, which the government now officially recognizes it provides, is controversial and has drawn criticism and stark reactions from some sectors within Israeli society, in particular from the Arab Druze community in the Golan. Being primarily pro-Assad, the Druze are accusing the Israeli government of aiding h al Sham fighters and other rebel groups, which they perceive as being terrorists.
In addition to giving medical treatment to Syrians, Israel is also sending a limited amount of food, water and medical supplies to Syria’s south. This is also largely carried out under the radar by private Israeli foundations in collaboration with rebel groups.
Furthermore, while some Syrians are clearly pleased with the humanitarian aid, especially after the border with Jordan has been closed, others perceive receiving any kind of aid from Israel as high treason, as Israel is still considered an enemy of Syria and the Arab world.
Finally, there are also unconfirmed reports that Israel provides some degree of military aid to rebel groups. Allegedly, Israel may be assisting with training vetted rebel forces inside Jordan, and Israel may be sharing intelligence with rebel groups and some Arab governments. For example, in 2014, the UNDOF mission stationed on the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line in the Golan reported that it had observed boxes with unidentified content being exchanged between the IDF and rebel groups.
Although the assistance is controversial among Israelis and Syrians respectively, it may partly explain why Israel has avoided attacks from rebel groups in the Golan area, even from more extremist jihadi groups affiliated with Islamic State and Fateh al Sham. Conversely, Israel has not attacked Islamic State-affiliated groups either. The understanding in Israeli defence circles is that Hezbollah and Iran constitute long-term strategic threats, while Islamic State groups are mere tactical threats that can be dealt with another day.
The future: Into the brink or staying the course?
Officially, the Israeli government maintains a policy of neutrality in Syria. However, in practice, Israel has drifted quite far from its “sitting-on-the-fence approach”. Some voices in Israel’s security establishment even call for further involvement and direct military assistance to rebel forces. First and foremost in order to weaken Hezbollah and Iran’s regional power and leverage, but humanitarian and moral arguments are used as well. The former director of IDF’s intelligence branch and now director of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) recently suggested that Israel should help rebel groups to overthrow Assad in cooperation with the US, Turkey and Saudi-Arabia. Specifically, this should be by providing advanced weapons, for example, by helping to establish some form of humanitarian safe zone in southern Syria along Israel and Jordan’s border, and by engaging in limited military operations, such as Israeli strikes against Syrian military helicopters dropping barrel bombs against civilians.
However, even limited military intervention and assistance by Israel carries serious risks or may have unintentional consequences in terms of 1) assisting the rebel forces, 2) ending the war and/or tilt the balance of power, and 3) undermining Israel’s own security. First, any direct Israeli military operations in favour of the rebel groups risk undermining these groups’ legitimacy in the eyes of Syrians and the Arab world at large. In Arab politics, Israel is not a “normal actor” and Israel’s capability to shape actors and outcomes in the Syrian war is therefore very limited. Secondly, we know from other civil wars with intense proxy-war dynamics that enhanced military engagement tends to lead to escalation by rivalling powers. In Lebanon’s protracted civil war, which has many similarities with the Syrian war today, external interventions led to a prolonged and destructive war, without significantly altering the balance of power at the end of the war. Thirdly, once involved, Israel may risk being dragged into further conflict and involvement, without achieving its initial objective. Israel’s intervention in the Lebanese civil war was also meant to be limited in scope and time, but in effect lasted for 18 years. Israel became embroiled in Lebanese infighting, allying itself with a Maronite Christian militia, it engaged in asymmetrical warfare against a myriad of militia organizations and paramilitary forces that were increasingly supported by rivalling regional powers in Syria and Iran. Israel ended up exchanging one adversary on its northern border (PLO) with another (Hezbollah). Moreover, the war was highly unpopular in Israeli domestic society, in part because of the atrocities committed against civilians, and partly because the Lebanon War was seen as a war of choice, rather than one of necessity.
Caution and restraint is therefore needed. Israel may be effective in influencing US policy on Syria in a more pro-active direction, it may provide intelligence, and some humanitarian relief in the south. However, Israel should stay the course and remain only minimally involved on the side of the rebel forces and within the limits of the “red-line policy”.
About the Author
Helle Malmvig is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). Her research focus include: International politics and security in the Middle East, including Middle East regional security order and securitization, regional conflicts and conflict resolution particularly Syria, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Egypt.
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