Balancing Act: China and Turkey in a Changing World Order

In March 2021, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Ankara to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu for talks with a complex agenda. Wang wanted backing from Turkey for its policies in Xinjiang, the Muslim-majority autonomous region in northwest China. This, he hoped, would show that the criticisms of several Western countries such as the US, UK, Australia and Canada that have attacked Beijing’s policy in Xinjiang had no basis. If Muslim Turkey has no problems with Beijing’s behavior, then why should other countries be disparaging?

At their encounter in the Turkish capital, Wang told Çavuşoğlu that “the essence of Xinjiang-related issues is fighting against violence, terrorism and separatism. China hopes that the Turkish side will continue to offer understanding and support to China on issues related to China's core interests and major concerns.” For his part, the Turkish minister obliged: “Turkey has always abided by the one-China principle and is committed to elevating Turkey-China strategic cooperative ties. Turkey will never get involved in any actions that are hostile to China”. In response, Wang promised to encourage Chinese companies to increase imports of Turkish products and expand the investment in Turkey.

Beijing has long argued that it needs to maintain control in Xinjiang because of the threat from Uyghur Muslim militants. Clearly, China views it as in its interest to bolster the Turkish economy to keep Ankara from straying and lending support to the separatists. In 2017, on a visit to Beijing, Çavuşoğlu had assured China that “Turkey will regard China's security as its own security and crack down on all domestic activities that threaten China”. By the end of that year, China had invested US$1.3 billion in Turkey, a figure that grew to US$2.8 billion by 2019. Although the Xinjiang issue surfaced again that year, provoking a short exchange of words, in 2020, Beijing promised to provide up to US$5 billion in financing to Turkey to promote bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation. The Turkish political opposition accused Erdoğan of betraying the Uyghurs for Chinese money.

While in Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and thus nominally a military ally of the US, Wang also discussed strengthening collaboration in artificial intelligence, the digital economy, 5G and big data, all aspects of China’s Digital Silk Road. In sum, at a time when the heated competition between China and the US for technological and vaccine markets may even be intensifying, China has sought to expand its involvement in the Turkish market and use vaccine diplomacy, investments and technologies to increase its influence in a country, which has the potential to create problems for Beijing in Xinjiang.

China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and Turkey’s Middle Corridor 

For its part, Turkey understands that, without China’s support, its Trans-Caspian East-West Middle Corridor initiative (referred to as Middle Corridor), a connectivity strategy akin to Beijing’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), will not succeed. Turkey is an essential bridge between Europe and Asia, which China needs to develop its China-Central Asia-Western Asia Economic Corridor (CCAWAEC). As part of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), the CCAWAEC would provide an alternative route from China to Europe without crossing Russian territory. Its mainland route would run from Xinjiang through Central Asia, Iran and then to Turkey, while the multimodal connection would go through Central Asia and across the Caspian Sea to Baku port in Azerbaijan and then on via Georgian and Turkish railways and roads to the Mediterranean, Black and Aegean seaports.

In November 2015, China and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding for the harmonization of the BRI with the Middle Corridor. In every meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Erdoğan has lobbied for expanding throughput on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. As a result, China has invested in the development and modernization of Turkish railroads, which connect the east and the west of the country. The China Railway Construction Corporation and the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation, in partnership with Turkish companies, won the right to build a high-speed railway connecting Ankara and Istanbul, the biggest city in Turkey and famous as the link between Europe and Asia.

Also in 2015, Chinese state-owned COSCO Pacific, in cooperation with China Merchants Holdings International and CIC Capital, paid US$940 million for 65 percent of the shares in Kumport, the third largest container terminal in Turkey, located in the Marmara Sea, 22 miles west of the Bosporus strait. In 2019, the first China Railway Express freight train traveled from China to Europe using the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway and the tunnel under the Bosporus. The first train to carry goods from Turkey to China began operating on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in 2020.

China closely follows developments in Ankara’s relations with the West. With his strongman style, Erdoğan has cut an independent foreign-policy path in Turkey’s activities in Eurasian and African continents, often not in sync with the interests of its NATO allies. It uses the issue of illegal migration as a weapon to press the European Union (EU) for concessions. Turkey’s negotiations to join the EU were launched in 2005, but accession talks have stalled since 2016.

It would seem that Turkey’s tense relationships with the US and Europe might nudge it closer to the Sino-Russian tandem. Ankara’s purchase of the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia became a serious diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the US, leading the administration of then-president Donald Trump to impose sanctions on certain Turkish defense officials. The April 24 announcement by President Joe Biden that the US recognizes the Armenian genocide has opened further rifts in Turkish-American relations.

All this will provide an opportunity for Beijing and Moscow to try to strengthen their relations with Ankara and draw Turkey to look east and join a Eurasian political-economic bloc. Turkey will try to avoid choosing sides but might be forced to make a decision if the competition/confrontation between the US and China worsens.

Would Washington try to repair the cracks in its ties with Ankara and encourage Turkey to play the role of “Trojan horse” and disrupt or thwart China’s BRI projects in the Middle East? Can Turkey maintain its delicate tightrope-walking act and serve as a balance between West and East?

Ankara would never withdraw from the NATO as it has fractious relations with almost all of its neighbors and the transatlantic alliance provides it with a nuclear umbrella, military-technical superiority, and security. Erdoğan, meanwhile, will continue to plot his independent dual-track diplomacy with the great powers.

But if a choice has to be made, Turkey will more than likely stay in the West’s camp as it did during the Korean War, when it joined the fight against the Sino-Soviet alignment. The US will try to involve Turkey in its own geopolitical struggles such as against Russia in eastern Ukraine. Washington will give Ankara a leading role in the US’s own New Silk Road strategy, which aims to oust Russia and China from South Caucasus and Central Asia. This would align with Turkey’s own regional perspective. Yet, Ankara could be tempted to look east to meet its considerable economic development needs, especially after the pandemic.