It should be pointed out that Uighurs are Turkic-speaking Sunni Muslims that reside both in the urban and rural areas around the Taklimakan Desert, the very place where the ancient Silk Road used to stretch. Back in 1990 those lands gave birth to two groups, the World Uyghur Congress that is demanding independence through peaceful means, and ETIM that has chosen the path of terror. The office of the World Congress is based in New York and enjoys all the attention of US media sources at most any time when Washington decides it's about time to criticize the "authoritarianism" of the Chinese regime. In turn, ETIM has long been running its operational bases in Waziristan that remains a de-facto independent Islamist radical state that is out of reach of the Pakistani.
Once Syria got overrun by all sorts of foreign mercenaries, radical Uighurs have moved to this war-torn country too back 2015. It's been reported that there's a large number of ETIM troops within the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra (that is now trying to rebrand itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham). When ETIM got actively engaged in Syria, the consequent arrival of Chinese troops was only a matter of time. In addition, Syria and Iraq have become the two polygons for the testing of modern weaponry and warfare tactics, and it was pretty unlikely that Beijing would miss the party.
Last August Chinese Rear Admiral Guan Yufeem who heads the office of international military cooperation met the defense minister of the Syrian Arab Republic, Fahedom Jassem Al-Frege in Damascus. The meeting allowed the parties to discuss the possibility of Chinese military advisors assisting the regular Syrian army. In addition, the parties reached a consensus on the delivery of Chinese military of humanitarian aid to Syria that in exchange for Syria's declared support of Beijing in the South China Sea.
Back in 2015 the Chinese parliament adopted the country's first law on the fight against terrorism, which allowed its army to launch anti-terrorism operations outside its territory, therefore China's involvement in Syria no longer contradicts Chinese laws. The final political solution on the armed involvement in the Syrian conflict was made by Beijing when it received irrefutable evidence that a well-organized and properly trained ETIM squad is operating on the regular basis in Syria.
China has its own interests in Syria, since before the war broke out it was Damascus's major trading partner with a total bilateral reaching two billion dollars, and Beijing no secret of its investments in the Syrian oil extractions ventures. Therefore, Beijing is interested in strengthen its presence in the Middle East and would definitely benefit from assisting Syria in rebuilding its civil infrastructure and industry.
Beijing has largely been disappointed with the breakout of the so-called "Arab Spring", the chain of colored revolutions that shook the region down to its core. China has always been investing heavily in the Middle East and has been providing loans to the Syrian government, which played a pivotal role in helping Damascus to keep feeding its people in the time of need. Yet, Beijing preferred not to intervene directly in the Syrian conflict due to its diversified interests in the region. On the one hand - it enjoyed a partnership with Iran, on the other has huge trade and investment contracts with the powerful secular Sunni countries and religious regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
But if China used to limit itself to supplying lightly armored vehicles and small arms to the Syrian army, now it has finally decided to assist Damascus in training its military personnel. However, the Chinese army hasn't had much experience in such conflicts, so it seems unlikely that it will be able to raise good officers, but it can train gunners, signalmen, drivers, mechanics, repairs specialists. After all, some artillery Soviet-made systems that Damascus are still being extensively used in the Chinese army.
In addition, one must bear in mind that China really wants to provide its troops with real combat experience, which is limited so far by the special operations against separatists in Xinjiang and peacekeeping operations, for example, in Mali and South Sudan. We can not exclude the possibility that in the near future Chinese special forces will be deployed in Syria. After all, the line between training local military personnel and hidden participation in the conflict is quite thin these days. Beijing has been watching closely Russia's military deployment in Syria, and Chinese generals would love to test its weapons, military systems, tactics and the Chinese system of global positioning. How deep are they willing to go is unknown, but what is sure is that Syrian troops need all the assistance they can get right now.
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook."
Sorry to say this Martin Berger, but your grammar, sentence structure and limited vocabulary make me cringe. This could have been an interesting article on an important topic but you've made it painful for anyone with better than a grade five reading level to peruse.
SOTT, wtf?