Beijing\u2019s effort to revive ancient trade routes is causing geopolitical strains, with countries like Turkey increasingly worried about becoming too dependent on China.<\/p>\n
By KEITH BRADSHER
\u200bDEC. 25, 2015<\/p>\n
ANKARA, Turkey \u2014 As tensions in the Mideast and Ukraine rose in recent years, Turkey<\/a> moved to jointly manufacture a sophisticated missile defense system. The $3.4 billion plan would have given Turkey<\/a>\u2019s military more firepower and laid the foundation to start exporting missiles.<\/p>\n But Turkey abruptly abandoned the plan just weeks ago in the face of strong opposition from its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.<\/p>\n Their main objection: Turkey\u2019s partner, a state-backed Chinese company. Western countries feared a loss of military secrets if Chinese technology were incorporated into Turkey\u2019s air defenses.<\/p>\n As one of its highest economic and foreign policy goals, China<\/a> has laid out an extensive vision for close relations with Turkey and dozens of countries that were loosely connected along the Silk Road more than 1,000 years ago by land and seaborne trade.<\/p>\n But Beijing\u2019s effort to revive ancient trade routes, a plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative, is causing geopolitical strains, with countries increasingly worried about becoming too dependent on China<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kazakhstan has limited Chinese investment and immigration for fear of being overwhelmed. Kyrgyzstan has pursued warmer relations with Moscow as a balance to Beijing.<\/p>\n With the missile deal, Turkey was turning toward China partly to reduce its reliance on NATO. \u201cOur national interest and NATO\u2019s may not be the same for some actions,\u201d said Ismail Demir, Turkey\u2019s under secretary for national defense.<\/p>\n But the deal immediately raised red flags in the West.<\/p>\n Besides the technology issues, the Chinese supplier, the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation, was the target of Western sanctions for providing ballistic missile technology to Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. So Turkish exports based on a partnership with China Precision could have also been subject to sanctions.<\/p>\n Complicating matters, China and Russia are close allies on many issues. Russia is especially distrusted in Turkey because of its military intervention in Syria and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. And Turkey had been a close American ally ever since it sent a large contingent of troops to fight North Korea and China during the Korean War.<\/p>\n The Chinese missile project \u201cwas one of the things that really made people say \u2018Turkey is shifting, wow,\u2019\u201d said Mehmet Soylemez, an Asian studies specialist at the Institute for Social and Political Researches, an independent research group in Ankara. \u201cChina wants to remake the global financial and economic structure.\u201d<\/p>\n With its wealth and markets, China is a tantalizing partner.<\/p>\n Many countries along the former Silk Road are frustrated by the difficulty of developing closer economic ties to the European Union. And they are alarmed that the American-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major regional trade deal, could give an edge to Malaysia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many years, we have been kept waiting at the edge of the E.U., and people are losing hope,\u201d said Sahin Saylik, the general manager of Kirpart Otomotiv, a large Turkish auto parts manufacturer. \u201cTurkey is not in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and problems in the Arab world are pushing Turkey to have other alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n But the relationship with China is lopsided. Turkey imports $25 billion a year worth of goods from China, while exporting only $3 billion there.<\/p>\n In Turkey, stores are full of Chinese goods, from vacuum cleaners to tableware. Chinese companies have purchased coal and marble mines, as well as a 65 percent stake in Turkey\u2019s third-largest container port. China is helping build nearly a dozen rail lines, and it is already a military supplier, selling lower-tech battlefield rockets to Turkey.<\/p>\n Companies are increasingly turning to China for cost reasons, buying components or importing fully assembled products. Arzum, one of Turkey\u2019s best-known appliance manufacturers, did the engineering and marketing for its popular new Okka single-cup Turkish coffee brewers locally. But the brewers are manufactured in southeastern China.<\/p>\n \u201cTen years ago, Turkey didn\u2019t exactly see the threat of China for manufacturing,\u201d said T. Murat Kolbasi, Arzum\u2019s chairman. \u201cThe threat has to be changed to the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Chinese companies can quickly sever ties as well.<\/p>\n The state-controlled China Machinery Engineering Corporation abruptly backed out of a $384.6 million deal to buy a 75 percent stake in the electricity grid of Eskisehir and nearby provinces in Turkey. It happened days after national elections in Turkey last June cast uncertainty on the future of the industry\u2019s regulations.<\/p>\n China Machinery provided no official reason to the Turkish Electricity Distribution Company for canceling the deal. The Chinese company declined to comment.<\/p>\n Turkish Electricity, a nationwide grid company, is suing the Chinese company in an effort to collect a breakup fee. Mukremin Cepni, chief executive of Turkish Electricity, said that he had worked 18 months on the Eskisehir deal and was unenthusiastic about any more tie-ups with China.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t think well of them, because personally I struggled a lot, and their going away without giving any reason exhausted us,\u201d said Mr. Cepni.<\/p>\n Ethnic issues have further complicated China\u2019s relations. Many countries in the region are Muslim, and versions of Turkish are spoken in more than a dozen countries, partly a legacy of the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n That history has fanned regional tensions over Beijing\u2019s stringent policies toward the Uighurs<\/a>, Muslims in China\u2019s Xinjiang region who speak a Turkic language. Beijing has blamed Uighurs<\/a> for a series of attacks on Han Chinese from eastern China.<\/p>\n When China suppressed Uighur protests in 2009, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister at the time, condemned the actions as \u201ca kind of genocide.\u201d Last July, Turks and Uighurs held two rounds of protests in Istanbul and Ankara.<\/p>\n Now the president of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan is prioritizing ties with China. He calmed the anti-Chinese protests last summer by urging his countrymen to be wary of rumors on social media about China\u2019s treatment of the Uighurs.<\/p>\n Nationalistic Turkish groups like Anatolia Youth, previously outspoken about the Uighurs, have responded by softening their stance toward China. Mahmut Temelli, the chairman of Anatolia Youth\u2019s foreign relations council, said that he believed that on missiles, \u201cthe bid should have remained with China.\u201d<\/p>\n The missiles became an international issue two years ago, when Turkey\u2019s defense ministry announced it favored a Chinese bid. It beat out an American offer to sell fully built Patriot missiles, as well as similar deals with Western Europe and Russia.<\/p>\n Turkey wanted to churn out missiles, potentially for export in a few years, and to stop relying on NATO\u2019s occasional deployments of Patriots. \u201cYou cannot protect a 911-kilometer border just with Patriots,\u201d said Merve Seren, a security specialist at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a pro-government public policy group in Ankara.<\/p>\n And Turkey\u2019s F-16 fighters, like the two that shot down a Russian warplane in late November, cannot be on patrol continuously, said Mr. Demir, the defense under secretary. Missile systems can be ready around the clock.<\/p>\n As the Syrian conflict worsened, NATO\u2019s limited supply of Patriot missiles meant that it sent only enough to protect three Turkish cities. NATO had begun to withdraw them when the Russian warplane was shot down.<\/p>\n \u201cNATO\u2019s deployment of air defense systems is on and off,\u201d Mr. Demir said, just hours after the the episode with the Russian warplane, videos of which played on the television in the background. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it gives a message that your partners can rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n But Turkey had a huge blind spot with the missile project.<\/p>\n Turkish military analysts compared a long list of variables, like missile range and the willingness to share technology and manufacturing. The analysis was approved by a committee including the defense minister, generals and Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Demir said.<\/p>\n But nobody consulted the foreign ministry on how Turkey\u2019s allies would react, partly because NATO had already tolerated Greece\u2019s acquisition of Russian air defense missiles from Cyprus. \u201cThey were informed after the process was completed,\u201d Mr. Demir said. \u201cIt was not treated as a special project that will have a lot of political results.\u201d<\/p>\n Within days of the announcement about China\u2019s leading bid, NATO member countries organized a campaign to overturn the decision. President Obama, Western European heads of state and top NATO commanders contacted Turkish leaders.<\/p>\n NATO officials have been cautious, saying any country has a right to choose its own equipment. But they have publicly expressed concern that Chinese missiles might not be compatible with NATO equipment \u2014 and privately that they were loath to share technical details to make compatibility possible.<\/p>\n Last month, Turkey opted to go ahead on its own. It will probably subcontract some components to foreign manufacturers, possibly China Precision.<\/p>\n An engraved metal plate from China Precision in a polished rosewood box still sat on a shelf outside Mr. Demir\u2019s office the morning the Russian warplane was shot down. Hours of negotiating with Chinese arms makers has forged a relationship that will make future military cooperation easier, Mr. Demir said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a value,\u201d he said, \u201cin the time we have spent with these companies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Beijing\u2019s effort to revive ancient trade routes is causing geopolitical strains, with countries like Turkey increasingly worried about becoming too dependent on China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}