Turkey in-between the EU and China: from Europeanization to cooperation with China

ABSTRACT

Turkey has been on the path of EU membership since the 2000s, and the democratization process was well underway during the initial years of its candidacy. However, this trend was reversed substantially, with Turkey growing increasingly authoritarian during the 2010s. This substantial democratic backsliding has led to increasing authoritarian cooperation with the authoritarian powers on the rise, one of which is China, whose increasing engagement and cooperation with Turkey marked an alternative gravity centre for Turkey to be pulled by. This article argues that Turkey, in line with the worsening domestic authoritarianism, has been engaging with the authoritarian powers for survival rather than engaging with the EU, which provided legitimacy to the rule of the AKP during the initial years of its rule.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarian cooperation
• China
• European Union
• Europeanization
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Turkey was the voice of Uyghurs on international platforms until 2015 as the home of the largest Uyghur diaspora outside Central Asia. However, increasing economic and political cooperation between Turkey and China led to Turkey remaining silent regarding China’s persecution of the Uyghurs, despite the Uyghurs being a Turkic Muslim community (Öniş and Yalikun 2021, 522). Additionally, during Erdoğan’s visit to China in 2017, Turkey and China signed an extradition treaty to restrict cross-border criminal activities. Although it has not been ratified by the Turkish parliament, there are some cases indicating that Turkey has already applied rendition, detention, and surveillance to its Uyghur population (Radio Free Asia 2019). Hence, Turkey’s turning into an authoritarian regime not only facilitated its cooperation with China but also caused Turkey to abandon the Uyghurs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gözde Yilmaz

Gözde Yilmaz is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute and professor in Atılım University. Her research interests are norm and authoritarian diffusion, external Europeanization, EU-Turkey-China relations, minority rights and non-discrimination in the EU and Turkey and Westerm Balkans.

Nilgün Eliküçük Yıldırım

Nilgün Eliküçük Yıldırım is an associate professor in the department of international relations at Atılım University in Ankara. Her research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Turkey-China Relations, IPE, social psychology.