By Benjamin David Baker
A Chinese national is fighting for the YPG. How does this affect Beijing’s role in the conflict?
The war in Syria has dominated the global headlines for the last four years. One of the of the main aspects of this conflict is the large numbers of foreigners who are traveling to join one of the many factions currently involved in the fray. Media attention has mostly focused on young Westerners joining jihadist groups. According to the U.S. State Department, 20,000-30,000 foreigners from more than 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups, primarily ISIS (also known as the Islamic State). As the terror attack in Paris this November showed, these fighters sometimes bring the conflict back home.
There has been some attention toward the foreigners who fight for the other side as well. According to an open-source report by Bellingcat, something like 400 foreigners have joined various Kurdish and Christian militias in the region, including over 100 Americans and 70 Britons. Although these numbers pale in comparison to the stream of recruits joining ISIS, it does show that the conflict in Syria is becoming increasingly internationalized.
China has mostly attempted to distance itself from the Syrian conflict. Beijing has in large parts been content to continue to acknowledge and endorse Bashar al-Assad’s regime. While it has some misgivings about Russia’s military intervention in the conflict, it has cautiously supported Moscow’s policies in the country as well.
However, the conflict is increasingly involving China, whether it wants to be involved or not. As Shannon Tiezzi has previously covered for The Diplomat, according to some estimates, something like 300 ethnic Uyghurs from China’s western Xinjiang province had joined ISIS at of this January. One Chinese citizen, Fan Jinghui, has been executed by ISIS.
Read the full story at The Diplomat