According to the "Middle East Monitor" reported on the 17th, in the context of Syria's continuous economic crisis and food shortages in the past two years, China announced that it has provided more than 4,000 tons of rice to the country.
Ambassador Feng Biao and Hebubati signed an emergency food aid handover certificate
According to reports, on January 16, local time, at the headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) in Damascus, Chinese Ambassador to Syria Feng Biao signed an emergency food aid handover certificate and spoke with Khalid Hebbati, president of the Syrian Red Crescent Society.
At the signing ceremony, Ambassador Feng Biao said: "We hope that the assistance can help alleviate the suffering of the Syrians, and I would like to thank SARC for its cooperation."
The rice is the latest in a series of food aid that China has provided to Syria over the years. In the decade-long conflict, the Chinese government has firmly supported Syria in safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity, and resolutely opposed interference in Syria's internal affairs by external forces.
A U.S. military armored vehicle traveling inside Syria. Image source: Visual China
Since 2019, syria has suffered from severe shortages of necessities such as wheat and fuel due to drought, water shortages in the country and across the region, and international sanctions. That has prompted the ruling Assad government to seek help abroad, and China is doing its part to help.
At the same time, cooperation between Syria and China is also strengthening. Last week, Ambassador Feng Biao and the Director of the Syrian Programme for Planning and International Cooperation, Fadi Khalil, on behalf of the two governments, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Belt and Road Cooperation in Damascus, marking Syria's formal accession to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Regarding the shortage of wheat and fuel in Syria, according to the Syrian official media SANA, the US military and its allies stationed in Syria illegally plundered Syria's wealth and constantly smuggled Syria's oil and food resources out of the country for profit. What's more, in 2020, US helicopters were also found to have dropped incendiary balloons at low altitudes and set fire to hundreds of acres of wheat crops in the country's Kazakh province.
U.S. military armored vehicles patrol near oil fields in Syria's Hasakah province. Image source: Visual China
Syrian Oil Minister Tumeh once pointed out that on the one hand, the United States weakens the Syrian economy and weakens the Syrian government's ability to control the country by frantically plundering Syrian resources; on the other hand, by stealing oil and food resources, it realizes "war to feed the war", and uses this money to support the operations of the US military on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, and supports the Kurdish armed forces against the Syrian government forces.
In November 2021, SANA also revealed that experimental analysis by the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reform showed that wheat seeds from Turkey provided by the US occupying forces through the so-called United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to farmers in parts of Kamishili, Kazakh province, in northeastern Syria, are not suitable for cultivation because 40% of these seeds contain nematodes, which, once used, will cause damage for several years and make agricultural land unusable.