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Kinling Lo

Lee Jeong-ho

China may have emerged as an alternative ally for Turkey while its relations with the US have deteriorated, but it is yet to become an all-out strategic partner for the country, with its security and economic policies still shaped largely by Nato and the European Union.
US-Turkey tension further escalated on Wednesday when Turkey announced it would increase tariffs on American rice, vehicle, alcohol, coal and cosmetics products.
Turkey increases tariffs on some US imports in retaliation for ‘economic attacks’
The measure was a “retaliation for the conscious economic attacks by the United States”, Turkey’s vice-president Fuat Oktay explained, referring to the US’ decision last Friday to double its tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium.
The US also blocked its sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey as the country’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Monday, vowing stronger cooperation – hinting at a possible change in the status quo on the region’s security.

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would like to form “a new alliance” with China, Iran and Russia to resist economic pressures imposed by the Donald Trump administration.
Some analysts predicted Beijing, while embroiled in a trade war with the US, may offer some financial assistance to Turkey, such as buying yuan-denominated bonds.
Earlier this month, Cavusoglu met Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing and promised to treat security threats to China as threats to itself, pledging that it would not allow any “anti-China activities” within its territory.
Meanwhile, Turkey has refused to agree to US President Trump’s latest demand, made in July, for the release of American pastor Andrew Brunson. The pastor has been held in Turkey since October 2016 on charges of aiding terrorists in a failed coup in July of that year.
China may well offer financial help to Turkey, but it will not turn around the troubled lira
Kadir Temiz, an international relations expert at Istanbul Sehir University, said the US-Turkey crisis was an opportunity to step up Sino-Turkish relations.
“Although China does not want to upset the US, it is in China’s national interest to cooperate with Turkey, which is still a geo-strategically important country between Europe and Asia,” he said.
Tit-for-tat measures with the US have prompted suggestions that Turkey may actively seek a fundamental change in its strategic orientation – from the West to the East – with the capital Ankara’s relations with the West at an all-time low since the failed military coup in 2016.
Turkey-based experts, however, have noted that China’s influence is still largely confined to the economy.

US-Turkey relations: A fractured alliance from CNBC.

Dimitris Tsarouhas, an assistant professor in the department of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, said: “Turkey remains a Nato country and, from a military perspective, this limits its ability to manoeuvre in search of new alliances.”
Ferit Temur, an Ankara-based policy analyst on Russia and Eurasia, also said Erdogan’s speech demanding the US abandon its hostile policy towards Turkey and threatening to form new alliances with the East was “a routine, weak political act”.
“It would be unrealistic to believe that Turkey would fully integrate its security with the East,” Temur said. “Turkey has been economically, politically and culturally under Western influence for the last two centuries.”
Growing global links mean Turkey’s lira crisis poses risk to world economy
Turkey has been a member of Nato since 1952, three years after the transatlantic security alliance – now comprising 29 North American and European powers – was established to counter the Soviet Union’s influence.
Meanwhile, it is currently only a “dialogue partner” at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the China and Russia-led security bloc, despite Erdogan’s declaration of interest in upgrading that status.
In 2013, Turkey agreed a US$3.4 billion order for its first missile defence system from China, but it was called off in 2015 after opposition from Washington and Nato.
Berk Esen, an assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, said China was not likely to be a substitute for Nato or even Russia in Turkey’s security.

“Russia would be Turkey’s more likely security partner before China, since the two countries already have a working relationship in Syria. Erdogan will try to develop better ties with China – not for security but for economic reasons.
“Turkey needs high levels of foreign capital in the short run to sustain its economic growth – and after Qatar, China may be the only country to offer such funds without preconditions.”
Selcuk Colakoglu, the director of the Turkish Centre for Asia Pacific Studies in Ankara, agreed that Turkey would rather consider Russia as a security alternative to Nato, and that China was well aware of deep-rooted US alliance with Turkey.
Turkey announced in December that it had concluded an agreement with Russia to buy two Russian S-400 defence missile systems by late 2019. “As a distant neighbour, China is adopting a wait-and-see and careful diplomacy approach [in Turkey],” Colakoglu said.
While Ankara currently perceives China to be a source of finance, it is also a priority for Turkey to maintain long-term relations with the EU, according to Colakoglu.
“Turkey is also putting more importance on EU countries to avoid a full confrontation with the West,” he said. “There are certain procedures and the rule of law in the EU that mean that, even if there are crises with certain EU countries, there is a limitation in using economic retaliation and sanctions.
“Turkish companies feel more safe doing business with EU countries.”


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Turkey

Turkey’s closer ties to China ‘will be economic’ as Nato and EU retain share of loyalty

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Chinese counterpart Wang Yi this month his country promised to treat security threats to China as threats to itself. Photo: EPA

(FILES) In this file photo taken on May 24, 2018 new cars sit in a lot at the Auto Warehousing Company near the Port of Richmond in Richmond, California. A steep drop in US auto sales and a second straight month of declining orders for civilian aircraft held down sales in the US manufacturing sector in May, the Commerce Department reported on June 27, 2018. The crucial auto sector, which is now vulnerable to retaliation by US trading partners in President Donald Trump's emerging trade war, had its steepest monthly decline in more than three years. / AFP PHOTO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / JUSTIN SULLIVAN

A handout picture taken and released by the Turkish Presidential Press Service on August 4, 2018 shows Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan making a speech during a meeting of his ruling AK Party in Ankara. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said August 4, 2018 that Turkey would impose sanctions on two US officials in retaliation for a similar move by Washington in a row over the detention of an American pastor. / AFP PHOTO / TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / Handout / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Differences must be put aside to contain the crisis in Turkey

As the lira falls, Turkish businesses find it increasingly difficult to repay debts denominated in foreign currencies. Photo: Xinhua

Turkey increases tariffs on some US imports in retaliation for ‘economic attacks’

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump. Photo: AFP

Growing global links mean Turkey’s lira crisis poses risk to world economy

The Turkish lira stabilised against the US dollar on Tuesday after posting an all-time low on Monday. Photo: EPA

The Cosco Shipping Danube, a container ship of the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), sails in the Bosphorus, on its way to the Mediterranean Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey August 11, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

JPG for ONLINE

A man uses a mobile phone to take a photograph of international currency exchange rates on display outside a bureau in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. A plunge in the lira sent tremors through global markets on Friday as tensions flared between the U.S. and Turkey, a pair of NATO allies. Photographer: Ismail Ferdous/Bloomberg

(FILES) In this file photo taken on July 11, 2018 US President Donald Trump (L) talks to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) as they arrive for the NATO summit, at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. - Trump said on August 10, 2018, he had doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, adding to pressure on that nation's troubled economy amid a diplomatic row with Washington. "I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar!" Trump said on Twitter. (Photo by Tatyana ZENKOVICH / POOL / AFP)

A picture shows a digital billboard giving updates on various currencies in Istanbul on August 13, 2018. - Turkey's troubled lira tumbled on August 13 to fresh record lows against the euro and dollar, piling pressure on stock markets on fears the country's crisis could spill over into the world economy. (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)

China may well offer financial help to Turkey, but it will not turn around the troubled lira

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 26, 2018. Photo: Xinhua/Wang Ye

A money changer counts Turkish lira bills at a currency exchange office in Istanbul January 24, 2014. A global flight from emerging market assets gathered pace on Friday, sending the Turkish lira to a record low and setting global shares on course for their worst week this year. European shares fell, especially in firms exposed to emerging markets, and a sell-off on Wall Street was poised to extend into a second day as investors worried about the impact of slower growth in China, U.S. monetary policy and political problems in Turkey, Argentina and Ukraine. REUTERS/Murad Sezer (TURKEY - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

A man checks foreign currency exchange rates outside a currency exchange shop in an Istanbul's market, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. A financial shockwave ripped through Turkey on Friday as its currency nosedived on concerns about its economic policies and a dispute with the U.S., which President Donald Trump stoked further with a promise to double tariffs on the NATO ally. . (AP Photo/Mucahid Yapici)

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