The top priority after a US missile strike on a Syrian air base is to prevent further deterioration of the situation and thus maintain the "hard-won" political process to settle the Syrian issue, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday.

At dawn on Friday, the United States struck a Syrian air base in the central province of Homs with dozens of Tomahawk missiles, saying the strike was in retaliation for the chemical attack on a rebel-held town in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib.

China's stance on chemical weapons is consistent, and it has condemned the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria, Hua told a daily news conference in Beijing on Friday.