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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
6Turkey has adopted a truly pragmatic approach toward China.
This approach regards China as a country that cannot be
economically ignored by any state in the world.
Therefore, Turkey, just like other countries, should maintain and develop its economic
relations with China in a balanced manner. Moreover, since Turkey faces some problems
related to its Western allies and neighbors from time to time, it should improve its
political relations with China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a
country with growing influence over global politics. The general consensus among the
Turkish elite is that Turkey can best serve its national interests by maintaining a delicate
balance in its relations with the U.S., the EU, Russia, and China. In return for political
and economic cooperation with China, Turkish elites expect Beijing to integrate the
Uyghur community into China’s economic and political system nation-wide, instead of
assimilating them.
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The perception of China among the Turkish public is near the notion of a rising superpower.
China is an assertive state in the new world order but it is not expected to cause
a radical change to the current paradigm of international relations. Nevertheless, there is
a common anticipation that the rise of Asian nations, led by China, will beget some sort
of pan-Asianism with respect to international relations theory. In the face of such a phenomenon,
Turkish intellectual circles appear to be emphasizing Turkey’s Asian identity
in the post-Cold War period. Whereas Ankara politically identified itself as a European
country throughout the Cold War period, since the beginning of 1990s it has begun to
identify itself as a Eurasian country. The emergence of Turkic Republics in the Caucasus
and in Central Asia had a strong effect on this shift in conception. The Asian origins of
Turks began to be emphasized more often and developments in Asia were given greater
priority. In the 2000s Foreign Minister Davutoğlu took it a step even further by describing
Turkey’s multiple identity policy within a wider framework that considered Turkey
an Afro-Eurasian country: as much as Turkey was European in terms of its political,
historical, and cultural identity, it was Asian and African to the same extent. 76
Turkish intelligentsia, business circles, and statesmen have thus begun to put more
emphasis on Turkey’s relationship with Asian values while redefining Turkey’s political
identity in the post-Cold War. China was the foremost of Asian countries to cooperate
76 Bülent Aras, ‘Davutoğlu Era in Turkish Foreign Policy’, SETA Policy Brief, No:32, May 2009.
TURKISH PERCEPTIONS OF CHINA’S RISE