China–Syria Clash Deepens Over Uyghur Fighters in Al-Sharaa’s Army

Chinese intelligence, military, and political agencies view Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s strategy of integrating foreign fighters into the institutions of the new Syrian state (by transforming them into regular military units such as the 84th or 88th Divisions and granting them Syrian citizenship) with categorical rejection and deep security suspicion, considering it a direct threat to their national security. Beijing believes that President Al-Sharaa’s policy of containment lacks international legal legitimacy and leads to the legitimization and normalization of transnational terrorists, particularly members of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). This group is composed of Uighur fighters from the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region of China.

The Chinese security and intelligence perspective, as represented by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), rejects the notion of containing foreign fighters within the Syrian state. Chinese intelligence, specifically the Ninth Bureau of the MSS (which acts as China’s intelligence agency), views the Turkistan Islamic Party’s dissolution and integration into the Syrian army as merely an organizational maneuver and a change of name. Chinese intelligence circles refer to this as legitimizing safe havens, meaning the integration of foreign fighters, particularly Chinese Uyghur fighters, and their acquisition of Syrian citizenship and official documents, grants them freedom of movement. This facilitates their infiltration into China, posing a threat to Beijing’s interests in Central Asia and the wider region.  In addition to the export of extremist ideology, the party’s recent announcement of its return to its former name, the East Turkestan Islamic Party (ETIP), and its reorientation towards China reinforces Beijing’s intelligence, military, defense, security, strategic, and political concerns about Damascus becoming a launching pad for military operations against it.

Meanwhile, the Chinese military and strategic vision, embodied by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the PLA’s intelligence and military think tanks, rejects the proposed ideological framework for integrating Turkestan and Uyghur fighters into the structure of the new Syrian state. Military planners in Beijing believe that integrating approximately 3,000 experienced Uyghur fighters into a dedicated unit within the Syrian army would create a solid, highly combat-ready force with an anti-China ideology. In addition to the potential for regional and international recruitment of Uyghur fighters from China’s predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region against Chinese interests, the Chinese military fears that these legitimized Uyghur fighters could be used as leverage by international powers (such as the United States) or regional powers (such as Turkey) to contain China’s growing influence in the Middle East and its Belt and Road Initiative projects.

Here, the Chinese political and diplomatic vision, represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, emerges in analyzing and adopting the official Chinese perspective on the crisis of the illegality of integrating Uyghur fighters into the new Syrian military structure. China maintains that the Turkistan Islamic Party is designated as an international terrorist organization under UN Security Council resolutions. Therefore, their legal integration, according to China, into the institutions of the new Syrian state under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa constitutes a violation of Syria’s international obligations to combat terrorism and is a clear legal invalidity. Beijing is raising its (conditional political veto against the government of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa), as China strongly rejects international efforts to remove the name of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (or the current Damascus transitional government) entirely from terrorism lists or to lift UN sanctions against it unless the issue of Uighur fighters is resolved in a way that guarantees their liquidation or handover.

As an Egyptian academic specializing in Chinese politics and the policies of the ruling Communist Party in China, I can make an analytical comparison between Damascus’s motives and Beijing’s concerns, represented in the axis of strategic disagreement between Damascus’s strategy (Ahmed Al-Sharaa) and the Chinese sovereign vision (Beijing) in terms of the Syrian approach and mechanism adopted (containment and settlement of Chinese Uighur fighters) through dismantling the organizational structures of foreign fighting factions and integrating them into the Syrian Ministry of Defense to prevent their internal rebellion, with the new Syrian leadership, led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, attempting to shape the geopolitical future of the new Syrian state to achieve internal stability (from the Syrian point of view) to ensure gaining the loyalty of the powerful foreign fighters who contributed to the downfall of the previous regime of President Bashar Al-Assad and to avoid entering into a long war of attrition with them.  Between the Chinese political, diplomatic, intelligence, military, defense, security, and strategic visions, represented in the imperative of uprooting and dismantling the organizational structure of Chinese fighting factions such as the Turkistan Islamic Party and Uyghur fighters from the Xinjiang region of China, the concerned Chinese circles reject the Syrian approach led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, represented in the institutional melting of the factions and their integration into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, and demand the complete disarmament, deportation, or criminal handover of the Uyghur and Turkistan fighters to the Chinese judiciary. While Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa adopted a mechanism of legal adaptation and national legitimacy to legitimize the presence and continued existence of foreign fighters, particularly Chinese Uyghur fighters and members of the Turkistan Islamic Party, within the new Syrian state under his leadership, by issuing local integration decrees and considering the integrated fighters part of the regular forces subject to Syrian law.

Here, the new Syrian vision under Ahmed Al-Sharaa clashes with the Chinese perspective, which considers the integration of foreign fighters into the ranks of the Syrian state and its Ministry of Defense, especially Uyghur fighters and members of the Turkistan Islamic Party, to be illegitimate under international law. China views their integration as a circumvention of UN resolutions and a whitewashing of international terrorism, thus undermining the legal legitimacy of the new security apparatus. Chinese intelligence, security, strategic, and political circles consider them a transnational threat, especially given the possibility that these foreign fighters, particularly the Chinese, could eventually become the nucleus of a highly trained and dangerous regional and international military organization, posing a significant threat. Chinese national security, particularly in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region of China.

In this context, I can trace, monitor, and analyze the repercussions and effects of the Chinese perspective by understanding and evaluating China’s reaction to the Uyghur fighters in Syria on the future of bilateral relations between China and Syria under the regime of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Here, Chinese institutions link their economic and political behavior toward the Al-Sharaa regime to its responsiveness to their security concerns through several measures, including freezing Chinese contributions to Syrian reconstruction. Beijing adopts a policy of closed coffers, curbing any large investments or funding within the framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Syria as long as the 84th Division or 88th Division, composed of Chinese Uyghur fighters, remains in Syria and receives institutional and systemic support from within the Syrian regime itself. Therefore, China pursues a principle of conditional diplomatic pressure. Despite ongoing diplomatic meetings between the Chinese and Syrian sides and assurances from the Syrian Foreign Ministry to Beijing that it will not allow threats. While China maintains its own interests, its full recognition and economic normalization of the new Syrian regime under Ahmed Al-Sharaa remains contingent on concrete steps on the ground to dismantle the Turkestan military presence. Here, Beijing is pressuring the Syrian regime of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, coordinating through regional channels and its diplomatic networks with allied regional states, such as Turkey, to integrate the fighters. This pressure aims to force Ahmed Al-Sharaa to modify his strategy and shift from a policy of integration and resettlement to one of dismantling and deportation in order to preserve the interests and relations of the new Syrian state with China.