China's 'objective and fair' Syria veto

Syrian forces continue to bombard the western city of Homs despite rising international condemnation of the government's crackdown on civilians. Syria's prominent opposition group, the Syrian National Council, has reported the death of nearly 50 people in Monday's violence. Twitter is rife with Syrian supporters commenting on the state of their desperation and expressing dismay at China and Russia's Saturday rejection of the UN Security Council's (UNSC) proposal.

One user tweets, "Homs is a disaster zone. Homs is bleeding. Bodies on the floors of field hospitals. Children of Syria thank you, Russia and China."

After Friday's massacre in the city killed more than 200 people, the members of the UNSC hastened to pass a resolution that would back the Arab league's plan to remove Syrian President Bashar al Assad from his position and prepare the country for a fresh round of elections. Russia and China have chosen to veto the UNSC's proposed plan of action, a move which has caused an uproar in the international community and added to the uncertainty in Syria.

China's stance

China has its own arguments as to why it is opposing the UNSC's plan. "The Chinese believe that it is not easy and not enough to say that the current government has to step down and democratic processes should be called for," Doris Fischer of the German Development Institute (GDI) told Deutsche Welle. There may be for several reasons for this, she added, the first one being that the Chinese have a principle of not interfering into other countries' domestic politics and second, that the Chinese government would definitely not support any resolution that is outright in demanding democratic processes.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Liu Weimin's statement reflects this position. Talking to reporters in Beijing about China's veto, he said, "On the issue of Syria, China is not playing favorites and nor is it deliberately opposing anyone, but rather is upholding an objective and fair stance and a responsible position." Liu added that China's goal is to help Syrians "escape violence, conflict and flames of war and not to make the problem even more complicated." He said that the countries proposing the resolution forced a vote despite serious differences among various sides. A move which China believes is not conducive to the unity and authority of the Security Council and definitely not for resolving the problem in Syria.

While Fischer of the GDI asserts that China is committed to the UN processes, Kerry Brown, China expert at Chatham House told Deutsche Welle China's opposition also reflects its misgivings after the intervention in Libya went way beyond the UN mandate's framework of conditions. Brown said, "Therefore there is a possibility that this time the resolution will go beyond what it has been mandated to do, that there will be intervention." Brown also believes that Syria is much more complicated than Libya, because of economic interests, its location in the Middle East and because of its population which is much larger than that of Libya."

An uncertain future

GDI expert Fischer assumes this could also have something to do with China's domestic situation: "There has been criticism of the Chinese system all along and it is not a democratic system at least from the perception of western democracies.” She added that China could risk facing international criticism over its own system should it support the UN on this.

While Brown disagrees that the international community's displeasure with Chinese policies for its citizens may be responsible for China's dissent at the UN, Brown is not very optimistic about the turn of events in Syria. "At the moment things will just continue. They will probably deteriorate, we don't know. It might be a month, it might be several months. But the issue of how to prevent Syria from drifting into civil war remains and that hasn't been helped by what has happened in the past few days," he adds.

Report: Manasi Gopalakrishnan

Editor: Sarah Berning