While on his first trip to China in nearly two decades beginning on Sept. 21, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signed agreements on launching a China-Syria strategic partnership, working together on industrialization, and collaborating on the Belt and Road Initiative.
Assad pointed to the astonishing rate of development China has achieved. “Nineteen years ago, we visited China,” he told CCTV on Sept. 29. “There are such large leaps that I can’t compare that time and now. At the time, it was said that China was called the world’s merchandise factory, but today, I can say that it is the factory of innovation and creativity.”
