HANGZHOU, China: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday, who said the two leaders would unveil a new “strategic partnership”.
Assad is on his first official visit to China in almost two decades as he seeks financial help to rebuild his devastated country, as well as rehabilitation for his government from years of isolation over Syria’s civil war.
He will attend the opening ceremony of the nineteenth Asian Games in Hangzhou on Saturday, international media reported.
Xi and Assad met in the eastern Chinese city on Friday afternoon, according state media said.
Xi told Assad that today, we will jointly announce the establishment of the China-Syria strategic partnership, which will be important milestone in the history of bilateral ties.
He said that faced with an international situation full of uncertainty and instability, Beijing is willing to continue to work together with Damascus, firmly support each other, promote friendly cooperation, and jointly defend international justice and fairness.
Ties between the two nations have withstood the test of international changes and the friendship between the two nations has been strengthened over time, Xi said.
China is one of only a handful of nations outside the Middle East that Assad has visited since the start of a civil war in 2011 that has killed more than half a million Syrians, displaced millions more, and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
China-Syria ties to a new level
China’s foreign ministry has said his trip will take relations to a “new level”.
Mao Ning, foreign ministry spokesperson, told a regular briefing that China and Syria have a traditional and deep friendship.
She said that China believed that President Bashar Al-Assad’s trip will further deepen mutual political trust and cooperation in different fields between the two nations.
Assad’s visit is his first trip to China since 2004.
Experts expect Assad’s trip to China will focus, in part, on funds for reconstruction. It also comes as China’s influence in the Middle East grows.
