On Turkey, China relations and Uyghur Turks

[Lure]

The relations between Turkey and China had a lot of ups and downs mostly due to the political agenda of Turkish parties that were elected. Traditionally Left poltics favored China, mostly due to China being a communist state and right politics disliked China due to again being a communist state. Of curse this is the paradigm of 50's, 60's and 70's.

My main thesis about the Turkey-China relations is that, the relations are heavily influenced by Turkey's internal matters. Especially Uyghur diaspora in Turkey effects this a lot. There are at least 300.000 Uyghur Turks living in Turkey today.

So let me start with some historical perspectives. In 1940's during WW2 first official request from Uyghur Turks came to Turkey for immigration. Turkey under under CHP rule (center left) rejected the proposal because of economic problems. They simply said we can barely take care of our own population and we won't be able to take you.

After that in early 1950's there was another request to DP government (center right) for mass immigration. DP accepted the request and in 1952 officially enacted the Uyghur Turkish immigration law. This simply means that Uyghur Turks would get citizenship very easily. Of course in those years going out of China in regular ways was nightmare so Uyghurs were going to Afghanistan, India or Pakistan illegally first and than contacting Turkish embassies at there and then after approvals they were coming to Turkey. In 1965 there was a second wave of immigration. And after 1978 (Chinese opening up) official (legal) immigration started (albeit very low numbers). After 1990 when Soviet Union collapsed Uyghur Turks migrating or visiting Turkey has sky rocketed.

After the collapse of Soviet Union Turkish right politics developed a what I call Pan-Turkism episode 2 which is forming a Turkish Union like European Union. The main argument was that West will back Turkey up simply because they want Central Asian Turkic states to be out of Russian sphere of influence. The main issue was opening up to Central Asia, forming solid economic relations and since we speak the same language everything would go smoothly. Of course this neo-Turan dream also covered Xinjiang or what is called as East Turkestan in Turkey.

This was mainly the backbone of Turgut Özal(Leader of AP, center right)'s foreign policy. He once said regarding Xinjiang : "I hereby announce that I'm taking the cause of East Turkestan on myself. Turkic republics under Soviet rule got their independence. Now it's East Turkestan's turn. Our wish is an independant East Turkestan."

Of course it didn't go as intended. Neither US was willing to support that ambitious plan, nor Russia was ready to give up it's influence on Central Asia. Also of course contrary to what Özal predicted, China did not dissolve.

After that in early 90's PKK terrorism apparently started peak. There were suicide bombings in cities, the eastern and south eastern provinces of Turkey was witnessing an unprecedented violence (some scholars define this period as a civil war). Right politics in Turkey had become so sensitive about seperatist movements. After that I guess they have discovered their hypocricy and started to back down on what they said before about Uyghur Turks. Mesut Yılmaz (leader of AP after Turgut Özal again center right) said in 1997 regarding Xinjiang : "I see East Turkestan as an integral part of China.".

Even far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said in 2002 : We are country that had experienced a lot pain due to terrorism. We are against every type of terrorist act. We will never support any act that is against the territorial integrity of China.

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

Now you should ask, why this topic had entered the Turkish political agenda with a lightening speed. And Tayyip Erdoğan made the harshest remarks about issue. Much harsher than his predecessors.

The answer of your question might be as follows. Turkey was undergoing what is called "peace process" in 2009. AKP wanted to sit down and start negotiations with terrorist organization PKK to end the long lasting struggle. Of course this was condemned by the right wing nationalist voters. And on top of that there was the global economic crisis in 2009 and the economy was going bad. In 2009 municipal elections AKP's votes hit a bottom of 38.39% which was the lowest since 2002. AKP needed to consolidate it's right wing voters. So basically they have exploited the issue. In the same year Tayyip Erdoğan also had a fight with Simon Peres in Davos. Basically every opportunity regarding right wing politics was used to protect AKP voters. It's as simple as that.

Now let's start with left wing politics in Turkey. I wil only give two examples. In 1998 it was banned for Uyghur Turks to make protests against China by Bülent Ecevit (leader of DSP - center left). He said : "Protests that are ongoing in Turkey about Uyghur Turks does not make their life easier in China but making it harder."

I wanna give another example about views for China from Turkish far left. Doğu Perinçek (leader of Worker's Party, that time now the name changed- far left) had said regarding Xinjiang : "Just like we do not support US backed PKK and Kurdish seperatism, we also do not support any CIA and US backed political and violent movements in the countries of SCO"

Now as you can see the events regarding Uyghur Turks are effected a lot by Turkish internal issues. On a side note China's comprehension of events in Xinjiang has also changed dramatically in years. In pre 9/11 world the events were regarded as ethnic seperatist movement. In post 9/11 world in order to gain more legitimacy to fight against, Chinese government changed it's rhetoric and started to compare Uyghur Turks with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. But I think Chinese government does not need that cheap trick to seek more legiticimacy. Because the movement regarding Uyghur Turks is not Islamic fundementalism but clearly ethnic seperatism. Legitimate use of power is only exclusive to states. Other parties who use power are terrorists. Killing for religious fundementalism or ethnic seperatism does not differ in my opinion.

@+4vsgorillas-Apebane please read and let me know if you views had changed about Turkey.

 

[Tresbon]

thanks, informative writing.

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

The relations between Turkey and China had a lot of ups and downs mostly due to the political agenda of Turkish parties that were elected. Traditionally Left poltics favored China, mostly due to China being a communist state and right politics disliked China due to again being a communist state. Of curse this is the paradigm of 50's, 60's and 70's.

My main thesis about the Turkey-China relations is that, the relations are heavily influenced by Turkey's internal matters. Especially Uyghur diaspora in Turkey effects this a lot. There are at least 300.000 Uyghur Turks living in Turkey today.

So let me start with some historical perspectives. In 1940's during WW2 first official request from Uyghur Turks came to Turkey for immigration. Turkey under under CHP rule (center left) rejected the proposal because of economic problems. They simply said we can barely take care of our own population and we won't be able to take you.

After that in early 1950's there was another request to DP government (center right) for mass immigration. DP accepted the request and in 1952 officially enacted the Uyghur Turkish immigration law. This simply means that Uyghur Turks would get citizenship very easily. Of course in those years going out of China in regular ways was nightmare so Uyghurs were going to Afghanistan, India or Pakistan illegally first and than contacting Turkish embassies at there and then after approvals they were coming to Turkey. In 1965 there was a second wave of immigration. And after 1978 (Chinese opening up) official (legal) immigration started (albeit very low numbers). After 1990 when Soviet Union collapsed Uyghur Turks migrating or visiting Turkey has sky rocketed.

After the collapse of Soviet Union Turkish right politics developed a what I call Pan-Turkism episode 2 which is forming a Turkish Union like European Union. The main argument was that West will back Turkey up simply because they want Central Asian Turkic states to be out of Russian sphere of influence. The main issue was opening up to Central Asia, forming solid economic relations and since we speak the same language everything would go smoothly. Of course this neo-Turan dream also covered Xinjiang or what is called as East Turkestan in Turkey.

This was mainly the backbone of Turgut Özal(Leader of AP, center right)'s foreign policy. He once said regarding Xinjiang : "I hereby announce that I'm taking the cause of East Turkestan on myself. Turkic republics under Soviet rule got their independence. Now it's East Turkestan's turn. Our wish is an independant East Turkestan."

Of course it didn't go as intended. Neither US was willing to support that ambitious plan, nor Russia was ready to give up it's influence on Central Asia. Also of course contrary to what Özal predicted, China did not dissolve.

After that in early 90's PKK terrorism apparently started peak. There were suicide bombings in cities, the eastern and south eastern provinces of Turkey was witnessing an unprecedented violence (some scholars define this period as a civil war). Right politics in Turkey had become so sensitive about seperatist movements. After that I guess they have discovered their hypocricy and started to back down on what they said before about Uyghur Turks. Mesut Yılmaz (leader of AP after Turgut Özal again center right) said in 1997 regarding Xinjiang : "I see East Turkestan as an integral part of China.".

Even far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said in 2002 : We are country that had experienced a lot pain due to terrorism. We are against every type of terrorist act. We will never support any act that is against the territorial integrity of China.

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

Now you should ask, why this topic had entered the Turkish political agenda with a lightening speed. And Tayyip Erdoğan made the harshest remarks about issue. Much harsher than his predecessors.

The answer of your question might be as follows. Turkey was undergoing what is called "peace process" in 2009. AKP wanted to sit down and start negotiations with terrorist organization PKK to end the long lasting struggle. Of course this was condemned by the right wing nationalist voters. And on top of that there was the global economic crisis in 2009 and the economy was going bad. In 2009 municipal elections AKP's votes hit a bottom of 38.39% which was the lowest since 2002. AKP needed to consolidate it's right wing voters. So basically they have exploited the issue. In the same year Tayyip Erdoğan also had a fight with Simon Peres in Davos. Basically every opportunity regarding right wing politics was used to protect AKP voters. It's as simple as that.

Now let's start with left wing politics in Turkey. I wil only give two examples. In 1998 it was banned for Uyghur Turks to make protests against China by Bülent Ecevit (leader of CHP - center left). He said : "Protests that are ongoing in Turkey about Uyghur Turks does not make their life easier in China but making it harder."

I wanna give another example about views for China from Turkish far left. Doğu Perinçek (leader of Worker's Party, that time now the name changed- far left) had said regarding Xinjiang : "Just like we do not support US backed PKK and Kurdish seperatism, we also do not support any CIA and US backed political and violent movements in the countries of SCO"

Now as you can see the events regarding Uyghur Turks are effected a lot by Turkish internal issues. On a side note China's comprehension of events in Xinjiang has also changed dramatically in years. In pre 9/11 world the events were regarded as ethnic seperatist movement. In post 9/11 world in order to gain more legitimacy to fight against, Chinese government changed it's rhetoric and started to compare Uyghur Turks with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. But I think Chinese government does not need that cheap trick to seek more legiticimacy. Because the movement regarding Uyghur Turks is not Islamic fundementalism but clearly ethnic seperatism. Legitimate use of power is only exclusive to states. Other parties who use power are terrorists. Killing for religious fundementalism or ethnic seperatism does not differ in my opinion.

@+4vsgorillas-Apebane please read and let me know if you views had changed about Turkey.

First up, thank you for taking the time to make such a comprehensive post outlining the Uyghur issue in Turkey. Secondly, apologies for this late reply - I saw the post this morning but cannot reply until my work shift is over.

The way I see it, There is definitely a lot of resentment from people in both China and Turkey over the Xinjiang issue. China, having recovered from a century of darkness and humiliation will not in any way accept foreign meddling, preaching and interference in domestic issues. Turkey on the other hand, seems to have some kind of cultural affinity with the people of Xinjiang and is extremely sensitive to what they perceive as discrimination and even goes so far as to use the word 'genocide'.

So who is right and who is wrong?

It is my subjective opinion that the best way to deal with this issue is to not bring it up at all. Turkey minds Turkish problems as you are simply the best people to understand your own virtues and failings and the same applies to China. No interference. No prodding. No mud slinging.

Unfortunately, it is Turkey that is breaking all the rules in respect to developing a friendly diplomatic environment. By assuming leadership of some kind Pan Turkish Union, criticizing China and going so far as to sponsoring fake passports Turkey is at fault of breaking the rules of non interference. Xinjiang issue will be handled by Chinese people as the people of Xinjiang are Chinese, regardless of their ethnicity.

Now to the issue of haters on PDF.

1) Dont take anything too personally, when people talk about countries and relations at a macro level, Im sure they do not mean offence to individuals at an individual level. If they mean offence, fcuk it and take it in stride or just argue back. It is a forum and other posters will judge the quality of your argument.

2) There is no denying the number of Turkish trolls comming into the 'China and Far east section' of PDF to lecture and flame bait is rising. How many times mush a Gordon Chang artile about Chinese collapse be posted?

3) China is generally indifferent to Turkish issues. U.S.A, India, Japan, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Vietnam is generally the most dominant foreign topics. Turkey is simply too far away.

I know this is far from a satisfactory response but it is my subjective opinion of the subject at hand.
So, has this changed my opinion on Turkey? That depends on the post. I have criticized China far more that I have criticized Turkey but you seem to take it that I hate Turks. If your a good guy we will get along fine.

BTW, That little fcuker Atatwolf seems to have single handedly brought Chinese Turkish relations in this forum to an all time low. Before he appeared, Chinese Turkish relations in this forum was generally indifferent. How many Chinese posters go to the the Turkish section to start threads and troll?

 

[cnleio]

The relations between Turkey and China had a lot of ups and downs mostly due to the political agenda of Turkish parties that were elected. Traditionally Left poltics favored China, mostly due to China being a communist state and right politics disliked China due to again being a communist state. Of curse this is the paradigm of 50's, 60's and 70's.

My main thesis about the Turkey-China relations is that, the relations are heavily influenced by Turkey's internal matters. Especially Uyghur diaspora in Turkey effects this a lot. There are at least 300.000 Uyghur Turks living in Turkey today.

So let me start with some historical perspectives. In 1940's during WW2 first official request from Uyghur Turks came to Turkey for immigration. Turkey under under CHP rule (center left) rejected the proposal because of economic problems. They simply said we can barely take care of our own population and we won't be able to take you.

After that in early 1950's there was another request to DP government (center right) for mass immigration. DP accepted the request and in 1952 officially enacted the Uyghur Turkish immigration law. This simply means that Uyghur Turks would get citizenship very easily. Of course in those years going out of China in regular ways was nightmare so Uyghurs were going to Afghanistan, India or Pakistan illegally first and than contacting Turkish embassies at there and then after approvals they were coming to Turkey. In 1965 there was a second wave of immigration. And after 1978 (Chinese opening up) official (legal) immigration started (albeit very low numbers). After 1990 when Soviet Union collapsed Uyghur Turks migrating or visiting Turkey has sky rocketed.

After the collapse of Soviet Union Turkish right politics developed a what I call Pan-Turkism episode 2 which is forming a Turkish Union like European Union. The main argument was that West will back Turkey up simply because they want Central Asian Turkic states to be out of Russian sphere of influence. The main issue was opening up to Central Asia, forming solid economic relations and since we speak the same language everything would go smoothly. Of course this neo-Turan dream also covered Xinjiang or what is called as East Turkestan in Turkey.

This was mainly the backbone of Turgut Özal(Leader of AP, center right)'s foreign policy. He once said regarding Xinjiang : "I hereby announce that I'm taking the cause of East Turkestan on myself. Turkic republics under Soviet rule got their independence. Now it's East Turkestan's turn. Our wish is an independant East Turkestan."

Of course it didn't go as intended. Neither US was willing to support that ambitious plan, nor Russia was ready to give up it's influence on Central Asia. Also of course contrary to what Özal predicted, China did not dissolve.

After that in early 90's PKK terrorism apparently started peak. There were suicide bombings in cities, the eastern and south eastern provinces of Turkey was witnessing an unprecedented violence (some scholars define this period as a civil war). Right politics in Turkey had become so sensitive about seperatist movements. After that I guess they have discovered their hypocricy and started to back down on what they said before about Uyghur Turks. Mesut Yılmaz (leader of AP after Turgut Özal again center right) said in 1997 regarding Xinjiang : "I see East Turkestan as an integral part of China.".

Even far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said in 2002 : We are country that had experienced a lot pain due to terrorism. We are against every type of terrorist act. We will never support any act that is against the territorial integrity of China.

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

Now you should ask, why this topic had entered the Turkish political agenda with a lightening speed. And Tayyip Erdoğan made the harshest remarks about issue. Much harsher than his predecessors.

The answer of your question might be as follows. Turkey was undergoing what is called "peace process" in 2009. AKP wanted to sit down and start negotiations with terrorist organization PKK to end the long lasting struggle. Of course this was condemned by the right wing nationalist voters. And on top of that there was the global economic crisis in 2009 and the economy was going bad. In 2009 municipal elections AKP's votes hit a bottom of 38.39% which was the lowest since 2002. AKP needed to consolidate it's right wing voters. So basically they have exploited the issue. In the same year Tayyip Erdoğan also had a fight with Simon Peres in Davos. Basically every opportunity regarding right wing politics was used to protect AKP voters. It's as simple as that.

Now let's start with left wing politics in Turkey. I wil only give two examples. In 1998 it was banned for Uyghur Turks to make protests against China by Bülent Ecevit (leader of DSP - center left). He said : "Protests that are ongoing in Turkey about Uyghur Turks does not make their life easier in China but making it harder."

I wanna give another example about views for China from Turkish far left. Doğu Perinçek (leader of Worker's Party, that time now the name changed- far left) had said regarding Xinjiang : "Just like we do not support US backed PKK and Kurdish seperatism, we also do not support any CIA and US backed political and violent movements in the countries of SCO"

Now as you can see the events regarding Uyghur Turks are effected a lot by Turkish internal issues. On a side note China's comprehension of events in Xinjiang has also changed dramatically in years. In pre 9/11 world the events were regarded as ethnic seperatist movement. In post 9/11 world in order to gain more legitimacy to fight against, Chinese government changed it's rhetoric and started to compare Uyghur Turks with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. But I think Chinese government does not need that cheap trick to seek more legiticimacy. Because the movement regarding Uyghur Turks is not Islamic fundementalism but clearly ethnic seperatism. Legitimate use of power is only exclusive to states. Other parties who use power are terrorists. Killing for religious fundementalism or ethnic seperatism does not differ in my opinion.

@+4vsgorillas-Apebane please read and let me know if you views had changed about Turkey.

Thank you very much, good to read.

 

[Place Of Space]

Thank you very much, good to read.

Why I don't know when China started to compare Uighur with Al-Aaeda or Taliban?

As I know, China take East Turkstan Movement (ETM) goup as illegal terrorism group, not Uighur.
ETM members mainly includes terrorism, seperatism, and religious extremism.

 

[Lux de Veritas]

Turkey now printing passport and give to Uighur and in occasions, faciltate them to go for PHD in terror in Syria.

Report: More than 100,000 fake Turkish passports given to ISIL

China 'breaks Turkish-Uighur passport plot' - BBC News

The most natural middle east ally of China is Iran. Iran is big enemy of Pan Turkism.

 

[IR-TR]

Good post Lure, you're very level-headed and you write well! Props.

At the end, it's an internal Chinese question. Even if China wasn't a superpower, it still is an internal question. I don't like Erdogan's policies much, but on the Uyghur thing, he's spot on. I saw a press conference in which he tried to fix the 'uproar' in Turkey by saying there are more than 40.000 mosques in China etc. Very diplomatic words. In short: Turkey needs China, Turkey won't make a problem out of this, but Turkey also has it's internal politics to cater to, so it can't completely laugh it all away. Let's hope that 100 billion in trade happens in 2025. A bit less lopsided if possible.

 

[LowPost]

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

The then-FM Ahmet Davutoglu told his counterpart Yang Jiechi that Turkey had no intention to to meddle in China's domestic affairs and he reaffirmed the importance of China-Turkey ties in a phone conversation in the aftermath of what happened in Urumqi. I'm sure Ankara realises that this is still the case this year.

Thank you very much for your assessment of China-Turkey relations and Turkey's domestic politics, @Lure. Your objective contributions to PDF are always appreciated.

 

[Lure]

First up, thank you for taking the time to make such a comprehensive post outlining the Uyghur issue in Turkey. Secondly, apologies for this late reply - I saw the post this morning but cannot reply until my work shift is over.

The way I see it, There is definitely a lot of resentment from people in both China and Turkey over the Xinjiang issue. China, having recovered from a century of darkness and humiliation will not in any way accept foreign meddling, preaching and interference in domestic issues. Turkey on the other hand, seems to have some kind of cultural affinity with the people of Xinjiang and is extremely sensitive to what they perceive as discrimination and even goes so far as to use the word 'genocide'.

So who is right and who is wrong?

It is my subjective opinion that the best way to deal with this issue is to not bring it up at all. Turkey minds Turkish problems as you are simply the best people to understand your own virtues and failings and the same applies to China. No interference. No prodding. No mud slinging.

Unfortunately, it is Turkey that is breaking all the rules in respect to developing a friendly diplomatic environment. By assuming leadership of some kind Pan Turkish Union, criticizing China and going so far as to sponsoring fake passports Turkey is at fault of breaking the rules of non interference. Xinjiang issue will be handled by Chinese people as the people of Xinjiang are Chinese, regardless of their ethnicity.

Now to the issue of haters on PDF.

1) Dont take anything too personally, when people talk about countries and relations at a macro level, Im sure they do not mean offence to individuals at an individual level. If they mean offence, fcuk it and take it in stride or just argue back. It is a forum and other posters will judge the quality of your argument.

2) There is no denying the number of Turkish trolls comming into the 'China and Far east section' of PDF to lecture and flame bait is rising. How many times mush a Gordon Chang artile about Chinese collapse be posted?

3) China is generally indifferent to Turkish issues. U.S.A, India, Japan, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Vietnam is generally the most dominant foreign topics. Turkey is simply too far away.

I know this is far from a satisfactory response but it is my subjective opinion of the subject at hand.
So, has this changed my opinion on Turkey? That depends on the post. I have criticized China far more that I have criticized Turkey but you seem to take it that I hate Turks. If your a good guy we will get along fine.

BTW, That little fcuker Atatwolf seems to have single handedly brought Chinese Turkish relations in this forum to an all time low. Before he appeared, Chinese Turkish relations in this forum was generally indifferent. How many Chinese posters go to the the Turkish section to start threads and troll?

Yeah I agree with you. Our government makes a lot of hostile remarks to fire up some "crazies" in Turkey just to consolodiate their votes. Than when they talk to their Chinese counterparts they talk differently and friendlier. Thats really discusting.

If you ask my opinion about the issue, I think Turkey-China relations should not be put into jeopardy for such a minor problem. Of course populist right wing governments do anything to get some votes but that does not represent the whole picture. Don't forget that, there are always a good portion of Turks who understands China on Uyghur issue and makes empathy.

Turkey should only help to open dialogue chanels -if and only if China requires- and tries to resolve the problems peacefully. Other than that Turkey should have nothing to say about the issue.

When modern Turkey is founded back in 1923, our constitution makes a clear definition for what "Turk" means politically. Turk means the citizen of Turkey for us. Of course there are Turkic people in Central Asia but politically we are definitely not responsible for them. Their language can be close to ours, some of their traditions might resemble to us and they may easily integrate our society and this is only good for immigration. If they want to come and live Turkey it's fine. But other than that, they don't have any right to drag us to their territorial ambitions.

 

[Sanchez]

The relations between Turkey and China had a lot of ups and downs mostly due to the political agenda of Turkish parties that were elected. Traditionally Left poltics favored China, mostly due to China being a communist state and right politics disliked China due to again being a communist state. Of curse this is the paradigm of 50's, 60's and 70's.

My main thesis about the Turkey-China relations is that, the relations are heavily influenced by Turkey's internal matters. Especially Uyghur diaspora in Turkey effects this a lot. There are at least 300.000 Uyghur Turks living in Turkey today.

So let me start with some historical perspectives. In 1940's during WW2 first official request from Uyghur Turks came to Turkey for immigration. Turkey under under CHP rule (center left) rejected the proposal because of economic problems. They simply said we can barely take care of our own population and we won't be able to take you.

After that in early 1950's there was another request to DP government (center right) for mass immigration. DP accepted the request and in 1952 officially enacted the Uyghur Turkish immigration law. This simply means that Uyghur Turks would get citizenship very easily. Of course in those years going out of China in regular ways was nightmare so Uyghurs were going to Afghanistan, India or Pakistan illegally first and than contacting Turkish embassies at there and then after approvals they were coming to Turkey. In 1965 there was a second wave of immigration. And after 1978 (Chinese opening up) official (legal) immigration started (albeit very low numbers). After 1990 when Soviet Union collapsed Uyghur Turks migrating or visiting Turkey has sky rocketed.

After the collapse of Soviet Union Turkish right politics developed a what I call Pan-Turkism episode 2 which is forming a Turkish Union like European Union. The main argument was that West will back Turkey up simply because they want Central Asian Turkic states to be out of Russian sphere of influence. The main issue was opening up to Central Asia, forming solid economic relations and since we speak the same language everything would go smoothly. Of course this neo-Turan dream also covered Xinjiang or what is called as East Turkestan in Turkey.

This was mainly the backbone of Turgut Özal(Leader of AP, center right)'s foreign policy. He once said regarding Xinjiang : "I hereby announce that I'm taking the cause of East Turkestan on myself. Turkic republics under Soviet rule got their independence. Now it's East Turkestan's turn. Our wish is an independant East Turkestan."

Of course it didn't go as intended. Neither US was willing to support that ambitious plan, nor Russia was ready to give up it's influence on Central Asia. Also of course contrary to what Özal predicted, China did not dissolve.

After that in early 90's PKK terrorism apparently started peak. There were suicide bombings in cities, the eastern and south eastern provinces of Turkey was witnessing an unprecedented violence (some scholars define this period as a civil war). Right politics in Turkey had become so sensitive about seperatist movements. After that I guess they have discovered their hypocricy and started to back down on what they said before about Uyghur Turks. Mesut Yılmaz (leader of AP after Turgut Özal again center right) said in 1997 regarding Xinjiang : "I see East Turkestan as an integral part of China.".

Even far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said in 2002 : We are country that had experienced a lot pain due to terrorism. We are against every type of terrorist act. We will never support any act that is against the territorial integrity of China.

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

Now you should ask, why this topic had entered the Turkish political agenda with a lightening speed. And Tayyip Erdoğan made the harshest remarks about issue. Much harsher than his predecessors.

The answer of your question might be as follows. Turkey was undergoing what is called "peace process" in 2009. AKP wanted to sit down and start negotiations with terrorist organization PKK to end the long lasting struggle. Of course this was condemned by the right wing nationalist voters. And on top of that there was the global economic crisis in 2009 and the economy was going bad. In 2009 municipal elections AKP's votes hit a bottom of 38.39% which was the lowest since 2002. AKP needed to consolidate it's right wing voters. So basically they have exploited the issue. In the same year Tayyip Erdoğan also had a fight with Simon Peres in Davos. Basically every opportunity regarding right wing politics was used to protect AKP voters. It's as simple as that.

Now let's start with left wing politics in Turkey. I wil only give two examples. In 1998 it was banned for Uyghur Turks to make protests against China by Bülent Ecevit (leader of DSP - center left). He said : "Protests that are ongoing in Turkey about Uyghur Turks does not make their life easier in China but making it harder."

I wanna give another example about views for China from Turkish far left. Doğu Perinçek (leader of Worker's Party, that time now the name changed- far left) had said regarding Xinjiang : "Just like we do not support US backed PKK and Kurdish seperatism, we also do not support any CIA and US backed political and violent movements in the countries of SCO"

Now as you can see the events regarding Uyghur Turks are effected a lot by Turkish internal issues. On a side note China's comprehension of events in Xinjiang has also changed dramatically in years. In pre 9/11 world the events were regarded as ethnic seperatist movement. In post 9/11 world in order to gain more legitimacy to fight against, Chinese government changed it's rhetoric and started to compare Uyghur Turks with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. But I think Chinese government does not need that cheap trick to seek more legiticimacy. Because the movement regarding Uyghur Turks is not Islamic fundementalism but clearly ethnic seperatism. Legitimate use of power is only exclusive to states. Other parties who use power are terrorists. Killing for religious fundementalism or ethnic seperatism does not differ in my opinion.

@+4vsgorillas-Apebane please read and let me know if you views had changed about Turkey.

I think that you are preoccupied in use of "PKK terrorism", "East Turkestan" or "Uyghur Turks". It's not an academic thesis because it's colored with Turkish political definitions.

PKK terrorism is exactly what you called ethnic separatism of Uyghurs. You are using double standards. I know a few Kurdish refugees in West Europe. They have same accusations against Turks as you heard from Uyghurs.

"East Turkestan" historically referred as to "East Tujue" that was located in present day inner Mongolia of China. "East Tujue" was decisively defeated by Tang army allied with a few turkic tribes including "Huihe" Uyghurs. "East Turkestan Islamic Republic", "East Turkestan" in short, was a state that claimed short lived independence in Kashgar region in 1933-1934.

Uyghurs call themselves Uyghur, not Uyghur Turk. It's some idiots in Turkey that created this word along with East Turkestan.

Turkey looks really bad on the Uyghur issue. You have been interfering with China's internal affairs by supplying falsefied Turkish passports inside Chinese territory and organising smmugling channels for those who paid to cross Chinese borders ilegally. Some Turkish "Atofs" as well as politicians are talking big and dirty about China. IMO Turkish still don't look like a civilised group or a modern state, given that you have such complex and bloody historical records.

 

[TheTruth]

If you ask my opinion about the issue, I think Turkey-China relations should not be put into jeopardy for such a minor problem. Of course populist right wing governments do anything to get some votes but that does not represent the whole picture. Don't forget that, there are always a good portion of Turks who understands China on Uyghur issue and makes empathy.

Thank you for a reasoned post, but I will say the issue is not minor at all. The Uyghur are not only not native to Xinjiang but the latest to arrive, having been preceded by many others. The Uyghur in fact are distinct from the medieval Uyghur who arrived from Mongolia hundreds and hundreds of years after the Chinese did.

This is akin to China supporting the annexation of all of Anatolia by Russia, or Iran, or some other historical power. Keep in mind that the ETIM terrorist nexus was funded and supported by the Soviets, some elements in Turkey, and later the United States. It's not a casual matter to support a group of people who supports racial conflict with the true heirs of the region.

 

[Shotgunner51]

The relations between Turkey and China had a lot of ups and downs mostly due to the political agenda of Turkish parties that were elected. Traditionally Left poltics favored China, mostly due to China being a communist state and right politics disliked China due to again being a communist state. Of curse this is the paradigm of 50's, 60's and 70's.

My main thesis about the Turkey-China relations is that, the relations are heavily influenced by Turkey's internal matters. Especially Uyghur diaspora in Turkey effects this a lot. There are at least 300.000 Uyghur Turks living in Turkey today.

So let me start with some historical perspectives. In 1940's during WW2 first official request from Uyghur Turks came to Turkey for immigration. Turkey under under CHP rule (center left) rejected the proposal because of economic problems. They simply said we can barely take care of our own population and we won't be able to take you.

After that in early 1950's there was another request to DP government (center right) for mass immigration. DP accepted the request and in 1952 officially enacted the Uyghur Turkish immigration law. This simply means that Uyghur Turks would get citizenship very easily. Of course in those years going out of China in regular ways was nightmare so Uyghurs were going to Afghanistan, India or Pakistan illegally first and than contacting Turkish embassies at there and then after approvals they were coming to Turkey. In 1965 there was a second wave of immigration. And after 1978 (Chinese opening up) official (legal) immigration started (albeit very low numbers). After 1990 when Soviet Union collapsed Uyghur Turks migrating or visiting Turkey has sky rocketed.

After the collapse of Soviet Union Turkish right politics developed a what I call Pan-Turkism episode 2 which is forming a Turkish Union like European Union. The main argument was that West will back Turkey up simply because they want Central Asian Turkic states to be out of Russian sphere of influence. The main issue was opening up to Central Asia, forming solid economic relations and since we speak the same language everything would go smoothly. Of course this neo-Turan dream also covered Xinjiang or what is called as East Turkestan in Turkey.

This was mainly the backbone of Turgut Özal(Leader of AP, center right)'s foreign policy. He once said regarding Xinjiang : "I hereby announce that I'm taking the cause of East Turkestan on myself. Turkic republics under Soviet rule got their independence. Now it's East Turkestan's turn. Our wish is an independant East Turkestan."

Of course it didn't go as intended. Neither US was willing to support that ambitious plan, nor Russia was ready to give up it's influence on Central Asia. Also of course contrary to what Özal predicted, China did not dissolve.

After that in early 90's PKK terrorism apparently started peak. There were suicide bombings in cities, the eastern and south eastern provinces of Turkey was witnessing an unprecedented violence (some scholars define this period as a civil war). Right politics in Turkey had become so sensitive about seperatist movements. After that I guess they have discovered their hypocricy and started to back down on what they said before about Uyghur Turks. Mesut Yılmaz (leader of AP after Turgut Özal again center right) said in 1997 regarding Xinjiang : "I see East Turkestan as an integral part of China.".

Even far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said in 2002 : We are country that had experienced a lot pain due to terrorism. We are against every type of terrorist act. We will never support any act that is against the territorial integrity of China.

From mid 1990's to 2009 Uyghur Turks were never in Turkey's political agenda. No one talked about them. After 2009 Urumqi incidents everything has started again. Of course this time it was exploited by AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leader of AKP (center right) said in 2009 : "It's just like a genocide..."

In order not to lose nationalist votes, far right nationalist party MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli made similar remarks : "Turkish government should do anything to stop the attacks against Uyghur Turks. Initiatives regarding both Chinese government and international community should be realized immediately."

If you notice, you can see that this guy actually changes his tone about Uyghur Turks in just 7 years.

Now you should ask, why this topic had entered the Turkish political agenda with a lightening speed. And Tayyip Erdoğan made the harshest remarks about issue. Much harsher than his predecessors.

The answer of your question might be as follows. Turkey was undergoing what is called "peace process" in 2009. AKP wanted to sit down and start negotiations with terrorist organization PKK to end the long lasting struggle. Of course this was condemned by the right wing nationalist voters. And on top of that there was the global economic crisis in 2009 and the economy was going bad. In 2009 municipal elections AKP's votes hit a bottom of 38.39% which was the lowest since 2002. AKP needed to consolidate it's right wing voters. So basically they have exploited the issue. In the same year Tayyip Erdoğan also had a fight with Simon Peres in Davos. Basically every opportunity regarding right wing politics was used to protect AKP voters. It's as simple as that.

Now let's start with left wing politics in Turkey. I wil only give two examples. In 1998 it was banned for Uyghur Turks to make protests against China by Bülent Ecevit (leader of DSP - center left). He said : "Protests that are ongoing in Turkey about Uyghur Turks does not make their life easier in China but making it harder."

I wanna give another example about views for China from Turkish far left. Doğu Perinçek (leader of Worker's Party, that time now the name changed- far left) had said regarding Xinjiang : "Just like we do not support US backed PKK and Kurdish seperatism, we also do not support any CIA and US backed political and violent movements in the countries of SCO"

Now as you can see the events regarding Uyghur Turks are effected a lot by Turkish internal issues. On a side note China's comprehension of events in Xinjiang has also changed dramatically in years. In pre 9/11 world the events were regarded as ethnic seperatist movement. In post 9/11 world in order to gain more legitimacy to fight against, Chinese government changed it's rhetoric and started to compare Uyghur Turks with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. But I think Chinese government does not need that cheap trick to seek more legiticimacy. Because the movement regarding Uyghur Turks is not Islamic fundementalism but clearly ethnic seperatism. Legitimate use of power is only exclusive to states. Other parties who use power are terrorists. Killing for religious fundementalism or ethnic seperatism does not differ in my opinion.

@+4vsgorillas-Apebane please read and let me know if you views had changed about Turkey.

An inspiring read, thanks!

 

[LowPost]

I watched a CCTV News interview with Erdogan and a discussion about Turkey-China relations and both videos mention good points which highlight the chances in increased cooperation concerning the AIIB, SCO, the Belt & Road initiative and counterterrorism efforts.