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Revamped Turkic states group ‘adds to extreme uncertainty’ at China’s door
- The newly renamed Organisation of Turkic States has three member nations that border Xinjiang in far western China
- Beijing-based analyst Yuan Peng says ‘a new force is rising in the heartland of world geopolitics’
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An upgrade to a grouping of Turkic-speaking states is adding to “extreme uncertainty” in Central Asia, a heavyweight policy adviser to the Chinese government has warned.
“[It] has swiftly transformed into its current form and it’s obvious that it’s aiming at something beyond an ‘organisation’,” Yuan Peng, president of the Beijing-based China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), wrote on the think tank’s social media account.
Yuan was referring to the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States, which was renamed the Organisation of Turkic States in November during its eighth summit in Istanbul.
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Its member states now include Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, three of which share borders with China’s Xinjiang region, a focal point of Beijing’s geopolitical outlook. Observer members include Hungary and Turkmenistan.
03:17
Why China is keeping a tight grip on Xinjiang
Why China is keeping a tight grip on Xinjiang
While Yuan did not name Xinjiang in his piece, Chinese experts have talked for weeks about the potential effect of the pact on ethnic Uygurs in Xinjiang, whose language shares similarities with the Turkic languages spoken in the region.
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