When Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime collapsed in late 2024, Beijing lost a familiar ally in Damascus. For more than a decade, China had backed Assad under the banner of sovereignty and counterterrorism, insisting that the Syrian war demonstrated the dangers of foreign intervention and jihadist militancy.
Yet the new order that emerged from the rubble is anything but reassuring to Beijing. The very fighters it once cited as justification for its hardline policies in Xinjiang – the Uyghurs of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) – have now been folded into Syria’s military establishment.
For China, the symbolism is stark. Uyghur militants who once paraded through Idlib (the de facto administrative and military capital of the Syrian rebellion) calling for jihad against Beijing are today wearing Syrian army uniforms; some have been promoted to colonel and brigadier general. This is the nightmare scenario Beijing has spent years trying to avoid: battle-hardened separatists transformed from outlaws into state actors, legitimized under the banner of a post-Assad interim government.
The development highlights a deeper contradiction. China has cast itself as a bulwark against terrorism, arguing that its repressive policies in Xinjiang are necessary to curb extremism. But the Syrian case exposes the limits of that narrative. Far from being eradicated, the Uyghur fighters have been recycled into a new state structure at a moment when Syria itself is spiraling into fresh cycles of insecurity.
Uyghurs began arriving in Syria around 2012–2013, funneled through Southeast Asia and Turkiye. They clustered in Idlib province near the border with Turkiye, where the TIP became a key battlefield player alongside al-Qaida affiliates and, later, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now forms the core of Syria’s post-Assad government. Families built enclaves around Jisr al-Shughur, creating a community that outlasted the fall of Assad. Estimates today place the Uyghur population in Syria, including fighters and dependents, at up to 15,000.
For many, the choice to take up arms was less about Syria and more about Xinjiang. TIP propaganda explicitly stated that fighting in Syria was a means for them to sharpen their skills for a future war against Beijing. Some fighters recorded threats aimed directly at Chinese infrastructure, invoking attacks like the 2014 Kunming railway stabbing or the Urumqi bombings as inspiration for future violence.
Beijing fears these militants could return home or export violence abroad. The concern is not limited to Xinjiang. China’s Belt and Road Initiative runs through volatile corridors in Central Asia, Pakistan, and the Middle East, all regions where militant networks linked to TIP already operate. In Pakistan, Chinese engineers have been targeted by Baloch insurgents. In Mali, al-Qaida affiliates have struck Chinese-owned mines. In 2015, the Islamic State executed a Chinese hostage in Syria, underscoring the vulnerability of Beijing’s citizens abroad.
As Samy Akil, a regional analyst, told The Diplomat: “China’s approach in Syria today is best described as strategic hedging. The core interests are driven mostly by security concerns regarding the presence of foreign fighters… economic interests, although lucrative, are more of a bargaining chip.”
Beijing Cries Betrayal
The integration of Uyghur fighters into Syria’s new 84th Division, announced in early 2025, underscored the challenge. Approximately 3,500 foreign fighters, most of them Uyghurs, were formally absorbed into the Syrian army. At least three were elevated to senior ranks. By June, the TIP announced its disbandment, a nominal gesture meant to comply with the Syrian Defense Ministry.
What alarmed Beijing most was Washington’s tacit endorsement. The Trump administration described the integration as a step toward transparency and stabilization, despite the TIP’s long-standing designation as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States itself until 2020.
For Beijing, this was nothing short of betrayal. Washington had not only delisted the TIP and its precursor outfit, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), but now appeared willing to legitimize their fighters inside Syria’s army. It fed longstanding suspicions in Beijing that the U.S. and Turkiye had facilitated Uyghur transit to Syria as part of a geopolitical game. Chinese officials warn that legitimizing militants in one arena risks encouraging them in another.
On the ground in Syria, the reality is volatile. Far from stabilizing, the country remains trapped in cycles of violence. Massacres have been reported across the provinces; kidnappings of civilians and activists are common; the new interim government is itself accused of human rights abuses ranging from arbitrary detention to torture. Opposition voices question its legitimacy, while militia rivalries simmer beneath the surface.
In this fractured landscape, Damascus views the Uyghurs as too entrenched to dislodge. “I doubt that this government will do something with those fighters because they can’t control them,” Syrian opposition figure Randa Kassis told The Diplomat. “Any attempt to arrest or expel them would cause almost a civil war.”
At the same time, some foreign fighters have recently petitioned for Syrian citizenship, arguing that they plan to live their lives away from China. This could solve the problem at least on the surface, yet in the long term, the risk of renewed involvement against China remains.
That leaves Beijing with a dilemma it cannot solve unilaterally. “China has no appetite to repatriate some of the Uyghur foreign fighters,” Akil explained. “At the same time it is not too keen to see them be incorporated into the Syrian military establishment. What China is trying to achieve here is to neutralize those fighters – disarm them, keep a close eye, and make sure the Syrian government refrains from utilizing them in military positions.”
The Syria question has pushed China and Russia into an uneasy tandem. Both powers once touted their Syrian policies as principled: defend sovereignty, crush jihadism, and sidestep the costly mistakes of U.S. interventions. Now, both confront the irony that their ally of convenience has been ousted, and its successor regime is embracing the very jihadists that China and Russia so feared. For Moscow, the concern is spillover into the Caucasus; for Beijing, it is violence in Xinjiang and Belt and Road routes.
“The presence of those foreign fighters within the Syrian military establishment does not offer predictability at a time where Syria’s political transition remains fluid,” Akil noted.
Counterterrorism Credibility Tested
Behind the scenes, Moscow presses Damascus through military channels, while Beijing uses diplomatic levers. At the United Nations, China has blocked proposals to delist HTS-linked commanders from terrorist sanctions. It has also slowed discussions on Syrian reconstruction, signaling that full engagement depends on credible assurances over the fate of Uyghur fighters.
Jesse Marks, a China-Middle East expert with Rihla Research & Advisory, described the stakes bluntly: “China has made counterterrorism, particularly against ETIM/TIP, the hingepoint for future normalization with Syria.”
“Despite a gap between Syrian and Chinese officials on the future of TIP foreign fighters, both sides have a steady drumbeat of engagements aiming to bridge the distance. Beijing holds a veto over Syria’s ambitions to see U.N. sanctions lifted, but failure to resolve the issue risks escalating it in the U.N. Security Council,” he told The Diplomat.
China’s broader role in the Middle East and North Africa complicates matters. Unlike Russia or the United States, Beijing has avoided military entanglements, preferring limited investments and cautious diplomacy. Its footprint includes energy deals in Iraq and Iran, infrastructure projects in Egypt, and trade ties with Gulf monarchies. But compared to the billions poured into Belt and Road corridors in Asia, China’s MENA presence remains modest. That makes Syria both less attractive as a market and more threatening as a security liability.
Randa Kassis argued that Beijing’s Syria strategy will remain narrowly focused. “China isn’t going to invest a lot of money in Syria,” she said. “They’re just going to send entrepreneurs, small companies to keep the relationship – but [continue] on making pressure on the government to deal with the Uyghurs. That’s their strategy.”
In practice, that means hedging: maintaining dialogue with Damascus, coordinating with Moscow, and leveraging influence at the United Nations, all while keeping economic exposure minimal.
The contradiction remains unresolved. China insists it is a counterterrorism bulwark, yet it tolerates an ally that legitimizes the very militants it sought to crush. It presents itself as a neutral investor in MENA, yet it cannot disentangle economic ambition from security fears. And it aspires to shape global governance, yet in Syria it is reduced to reactive hedging.
The fate of the Uyghurs in Syria is more than a bilateral issue between Beijing and Damascus. It is a litmus test of China’s credibility as a rising power confronting transnational jihadism, a reminder that security threats do not always yield to economic carrots or diplomatic vetoes. In Syria’s unstable landscape, where massacres, kidnappings, and abuses continue, Beijing’s playbook looks less like strategic foresight and more like damage control.