After relations deteriorated between Beijing and Ankara in 2009 over Turkish officials’ criticism of China’s crackdown on riots in Uighur Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province, relations have improved, in large part because of a shift in attitude on the Uighur issue by both governments.
Turkey, hoping to expand its influence in Central Asia, has avoided sharp rhetorical condemnation of Chinese government actions, and Beijing, hoping to attract Turkish investment and desiring a new approach less likely to spark ethnic unrest in the future, has made several policy shifts of its own.
Analysis
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu began a six-day trip to China on Oct. 28, landing in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, as part of a tour that will include visits to Urumqi, Shiyan, Shanghai and Beijing. Davutoglu’s first stops have symbolic meaning, as Kashgar and Urumqi are populated by Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group that speaks a dialect similar to Turkish and a fraction of which considers itself to be part of a greater Eastern Turkestan region of Central Asia, rather than Chinese citizens.
China’s relationship with Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim Uighurs has long been fraught due to the strategic significance of Xinjiang on the Chinese border. After riots broke out in 2009 between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese in Urumqi and the Chinese government cracked down, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the situation as “violence” and “almost genocide,” while Turkish Trade and Industry Minister Nihat Ergun called for a boycott of Chinese goods. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun rebuffed Erdogan’s remarks as “irresponsible,” and relations between Ankara and Beijing deteriorated.
Over the last several months, however, both China and Turkey have taken steps to repair their ties, and Davutoglu’s visit to cities at the heart of the 2009 unrest is only the latest example. Turkey, hoping to make economic and political inroads in the Turkic-dominated region, has adopted a much more sophisticated approach to expanding its influence than its previous strategy of taking umbrage on behalf of a fellow Turkic people. Davutoglu himself noted the change in approach, saying, “the better the ties are between Ankara and Beijing, the more the Uighur population will benefit.” Both countries understand that they share important strategic interests: Turkey can increase its influence in Central Asia through Xinjiang, and China appears happy to allow Turkish investment into the capital-poor region as well as Turkey’s use of its ethnic ties with the Uighur population there to prevent future riots. China undoubtedly will keep a sharp eye on Turkey’s activities in the region to make sure that its influence will not promote separatism, though Turkey is unlikely to pursue such an obvious affront to Beijing.
Mending Ties
The most obvious sign of rebounding relations came in September 2010, when Turkey invited China for the first time to participate in the Anatolian Eagle military exercises. Typically, Israel and the United States take part in this exercise with Turkey, but Ankara decided for a second consecutive time to exclude Israel, prompting the United States to withdraw. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao then paid an official visit to Turkey in early October to discuss improving economic ties, during which he said Turkey and China agreed on establishing a Turkish industrial zone in Xinjiang. Trade volume between the two countries is roughly $18 billion and China became the largest exporter to Turkey in September.
For Turkey, the motivation to improve ties with China is part of its broader strategy, which aims to decrease its political and economic dependence on the United States and Europe. The Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey has long used religious and ethnic ties in its immediate neighborhood to increase Ankara’s influence as a rapidly emerging regional power, along with the favorable conditions that a dynamic Turkish economy provides. In the case of Xinjiang, however, the AKP has realized the limits of this strategy, due to both geographical constraints and China’s ability to block unwanted influences. This realization encouraged the AKP to reconsider its harsh rhetoric on China’s handling of the Uighur issue.
This change in Turkey’s strategy is very much in line with Beijing’s new approach to ease tensions in the Xinjiang region. After the riots in July 2009, Beijing began to formulate a new plan for handling Xinjiang. The plan concluded that brute force and overbearing central control was not effective and in fact led to the riots, which in turn left little chance for anything but the security crackdown to restore order.
Economic Opportunities
China’s new strategy for Xinjiang focuses on socio-economic development to create a more stable society and prevent ethnic and religious tensions, economic grievances, and separatist militancy from erupting. Beijing is pushing huge government investment into the region, including its renewed “Go West” program, which includes $100 billion in funds for development in provinces including Xinjiang, and an additional $30 billion to promote a regional electricity grid. Most important, Beijing is testing out a new tax on energy production in Xinjiang before the tax is expanded to the entire nation. Xinjiang is a major energy producing province, and the tax will give a boost to provincial government coffers. Theoretically, this will enable more money to be spent on social services, thus boosting consumption and social stability. Meanwhile, Xinjiang has become an important transit point for the new Central Asian natural gas pipeline, and China is continuing to expand links to Central Asia that can boost trade.
In April, Beijing replaced Wang Lequan, who had been the party secretary in Xinjiang and de facto ultimate authority for the previous 15 years, with an up-and-coming leader named Zhang Chunxian. Zhang, a former communications minister and party secretary in Hunan province, has been cited as the “most open-minded minister” and as a forward-looking, reformist party secretary. His placement in Xinjiang is in direct contrast to the previous leadership, which was perceived as using heavy-handed tactics to deal with the Uighur minority, thus aggravating ethnic tensions and helping to lead to the 2009 riots. Even though Zhang has little experience managing ethnic tensions, his appointment to the region demonstrates a policy decision by Beijing to implement a soft power strategy that focuses on Xinjiang’s socio-economic development.
Whether Turkey’s new approach will last remains to be seen, as Turkey’s assertiveness in Central Asia may re-emerge in the long term. China is extremely averse to foreign influence within its borders, especially in buffer regions like Xinjiang that serve a strategic purpose but that have ethnic minority populations that often chafe at Beijing’s control. It is for this reason that China has been reluctant to allow Turkey to have a say in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which could undermine Chinese influence in the region. While Ankara and Beijing seem to have found a way to cooperate on the Uighur issue that allows Turkey increased access to the region and China a potentially more effective means of containing Uighur unrest, there remain a number of factors that could reignite tensions between the two.
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