The visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Turkey, who met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and then President Erdoğan in Ankara yesterday, can be seen as an opportunity to put relations back on track after they were strained by the domestic political agenda during the election period. In particular, Wang’s emphasis on the need to encourage more Chinese companies to invest and do business in Turkey seems to have pleased Ankara, which is seeking foreign investment in the midst of an economic crunch.

Indeed, the center of gravity of the meeting was the Central Corridor from Beijing to London, with Turkey at its center. While President Erdoğan expressed his desire to accelerate cooperation in the context of harmonizing the Belt and Road Initiative and the Central Corridor, Wang Yi, who is also a Politburo Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, stated that “they are ready to enhance mutual strategic trust and deepen cooperation with Turkey”.

The Chinese Foreign Minister emphasized that they support Turkey to play an important role in the regional and international arena and that they oppose any foreign interference in Turkey’s internal affairs.

Chinese media also highlighted President Erdoğan’s telling Wang that they “do not support NATO’s increasing activities in the Asia-Pacific” and emphasizing their commitment to the “one-China” principle.

The Uighur issue, seen as one of the most critical problems in the relations between the two countries, was glossed over with a sentence such as “The situation of Uighur Turks was also discussed on the occasion of the visit”, once again showing that the emphasis and statements made on the ‘Uighur issue’ during the election period were handled in the context of domestic politics.

‘Economy and trade dynamics are catalysts in Turkey-China relations’

Commenting on the visit to Harici, Istanbul Gedik University ASEAN Center Director Dr. Sibel Karabel pointed out the importance of timing conjuncturally and said the following:

“First of all, it is necessary to briefly evaluate the state of Turkey-China relations in the current conjuncture and the extent of economic and trade relations. The strategic partnership of the two countries should also be emphasized in this context. In 1971, diplomatic relations were established and as President Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated in the meeting, Turkey has been adhering to the ‘one China’ policy since then. In 2010, a strategic partnership was established. In 2015, Turkey officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative with a memorandum of understanding. And mutual commitments have been made to continuously increase the volume of bilateral trade and engagement between the two countries in the regional and global context.”

Stating that economic and commercial dynamics are “the catalyst” in Turkey-China relations, Karabel listed the following data: “When we evaluate the background of the Belt and Road Initiative, a target was set for the mutual trade volume between the two countries to reach 50 billion dollars as of 2015. We are talking about a trade volume of 33 billion dollars. On the other hand, Turkey’s foreign trade deficit against China, which unfortunately increases rapidly every year, especially between 2019 and 2022, is an important issue. In fact, in this context, the Belt and Road initiative is both an initiative that will highlight Turkey’s potential to become a center for transit trade and an initiative that has the caliber that can cure this problem. In other words, the investments made and planned to be made in the Belt and Road initiative have the potential to turn these trade dynamics between Turkey and China a little more in Turkey’s favor.”

Pointing out that Turkey is currently lagging behind this potential, Karabel summarizes the dynamics of the current commercial relationship as follows: “We know that the total investment of Chinese companies in the Belt and Road Initiative between 2013 and 2022 is approximately 1.4 trillion dollars. And in the same period, we see that the investments allocated to Turkey are 5.11 billion dollars. So our share in total investments is around 1.3 percent. And especially when we look at the trade balance between Turkey and China between 2019 and 2022, we see that imports have doubled. In other words, by nature, semi-finished goods are imported from China and processed and re-exported to the European Union countries. This is the dynamic of the trade relationship.”

Central Corridor emphasized

Sibel Karabel noted that the Belt and Road Initiative and the Middle Corridor were particularly emphasized in the talks, and that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan drew attention to different energy fields, aviation fields, different sectors, and mentioned “improving the Belt and Road Initiative’s ability to respond to global threats and global challenges”.

Underlining the importance of Wang Yi’s emphasis on “developing strategic mutual trust and deepening cooperation mechanisms”, Karabel said, “Wang Yi even talked about a future-oriented and broad-targeted relationship dynamic in his meeting with President Erdoğan.”

‘A relationship within its own dynamics separate from the West’

On the other hand, drawing attention to President Erdoğan’s emphasis on the ‘One China policy’ and the fact that China’s development is not perceived as a threat by Turkey, Karabel stated that the expression “China’s development is perceived as a threat” is a Western jargon, and that it is a matter of how the West sees China: “The West perceive China’s development as a threat when evaluated from the realist paradigm in the context of the relative balance of power on the global level.”

In this context, Karabel said that Erdoğan’s statement that “they do not see China’s development as a threat” can also be considered as a “tacit reference” to NATO documents and commented as follows “In fact, there is a tacit emphasis here that Turkey’s relations with China are independent from the West and have their own dynamics. This is an important emphasis.”

The importance of the Central Corridor and Turkey increased after the Ukraine crisis

Karabel also touched upon the importance of the Ukraine issue in the bilateral relations and discussed this in the context of Turkey’s growing importance in the Belt and Road Initiative and the Middle Corridor:

“The Belt and Road Initiative is actually a very dynamic initiative and is being pursued under the direction of the National Planning Commission in China. It is not only a matter of combining the plans, projects and infrastructure lines that were declared in 2013 and have been rigidly and rigidly implemented since then, but also the articulation of previous mechanisms and projects into the Belt and Road Initiative. Therefore, the Central Corridor, where Turkey is located, is actually more prominent in the context of Ukraine. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest trademarks of the Central Corridor is that it is more advantageous than the Northern Corridor and the Southern Corridor. On the trade route from China to Europe, it has a cost advantage because it stops at fewer countries. There is also a very serious saving in time. It significantly reduces the number of days of transportation. In fact, before Ukraine, the route that China tended to use more was the Northern route. Now there are more countries on the Southern route. There are countries subject to sanctions etc. So now, after the Ukraine incident, the importance of the Middle Corridor has increased a bit more for China.”

The course of relations with the US, EU and China reflects the new era of Turkish foreign policy

On the other hand, evaluating the visit together with the NATO summit, Karabel points out that events and sectors are intertwined with each other and that this situation reflects the new era of Turkish foreign policy:

“At the NATO summit, the F-16s came to the fore, especially in the Swedish issue, and on the other hand, Turkey’s integration with the European Union and the European Union membership negotiation process were brought back to the agenda. The revival of Turkey’s full membership negotiations with the EU is a step towards revitalizing the almost frozen relationship. Turkey’s relations with the European Union do not only consist of membership negotiations. That is an important part, but there are also acute issues. For example, the Customs Union, modernization of the Customs Union negotiations, visa liberalization. In fact, there are a number of acute mini-sectoral issues. Therefore, on the one hand, there is an effort to revitalize these, and on the other hand, there is an effort to carry out relations with the United States in a way to develop relations on a more common ground, such as the F-16 issue.

On the other hand, as a result of the conjunctural developments in relations with China and Asia, we observe that Turkey’s leverage is actually increasing, especially in issues such as being an epicenter of transportation and turning this structural trade balance in its relations with China more in its favor. These are indeed conjunctural and historical opportunities, important opportunities.”