Wait...wait...wait...
Did Tribesman and Skybird both just say the same thing?
In all seriousness, you both make good points that I had overlooked, however I would say that Syria is probably not particularly high on Chinas foot-in-the-door list. It's a good wedge in the region, I don't deny, but I don't think that they'd deploy their currency bomb over it. Personally, I think that they'd only do something like that over something a lot closer to home, like Taiwan or Tibet, and it'd have to be a real last ditch reason because the currency bomb is a kamikaze attack.