"Zero Problems, Maximum Trade": Chinese Edition

In July of 2009, after dozens of Uighurs were killed or went missing in the wake of ethnic riots in western China's Xinjiang province, Turkish merchants were setting fire to Chinese-made products, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed a "genocide" had been committed and a diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Beijing appeared to be brewing. (For more details, take a look at these previous posts.)

Cut to today, with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao coming to Turkey on an official visit and announcing with Erdogan that the two countries are establishing a "strategic partnership" and plan to triple their trade in the next five years. This comes on the heels of reports that Turkish and Chinese military jets trained together, as part of the annual Anatolian Eagle exercises that Ankara last year controversially banned Israel from participating in (on the grounds that the Turkish public wouldn't accept the presence of the same military that attacked Gaza on Turkish soil). Uighurs? "Genocide?" Let bygones be bygones. Clearly Turkey and China have bigger fish to fry these days.

It's fairly obvious to say that when it wants to be, the Erdogan government can be exceedingly pragmatic, especially when the issue is expanding trade. But I think the interaction with China also says a lot about "public opinion" in Turkey and how it can be shaped by official attitudes. Since the "genocide" remark in July of 2009, Erdogan and other officials have said very little about the situation in Xinjiang and have refrained from criticizing China. The result? Where one would expect at least some reaction on the behalf of the Turkish public on behalf of their Uighur kin during the Chinese leader's visit, there has been silence.

For the Ilisu Dam, a Lifeline Made in China?

Will the controversial Ilisu dam project in southeast Turkey, put on the shelf after European creditors withdrew their support due to a lack of environmental safeguards, be brought back to life with Chinese help?

From a blog post by Peter Bosshard, policy director for International Rivers:

Turkey is so indebted it cannot finance the dam from its own resources. Reliable sources have told us that the Turkish government is currently discussing support for the Ilisu Dam with China. For years, the Turkish and Chinese governments have strongly disagreed over the treatment of the Uighur population, which is ethnically Turkic, in China’s Xinjiang Province. Yet in June 2009, Turkey’s President visited China and signed several cooperation agreements, including in the energy sector.

Under a plan which is currently being discussed, Andritz Hydro, the main contractor for the Ilisu hydropower project, would manufacture the turbines for the project in China rather than in Austria. Sinosure, an insurance company set up and owned by the Chinese government, would insure the bank loans for the contract. In a new twist in its emerging role, China would thus not enable its own dam builders to go abroad, but would underwrite the exports of Western dam builders which have shifted part of their manufacturing base to China.

When Chinese companies and financiers started to go overseas around the turn of the century, they held that following social and environmental standards was up to their host governments. They consequently picked up several rogue projects that had been shunned by other financiers during this period. China Exim Bank provided more than $500 million in funding for the Merowe Dam in Sudan in 2003 after export credit agencies from Europe and Canada declined to get involved because of environmental and human rights concerns. Chinese companies are also building several dams in Burma which many other actors would not touch.

Projects like the Merowe Dam have created serious conflicts with the local populations, and have damaged the reputation of the involved Chinese companies. Starting in 2006, the Chinese government asked its companies to take environmental and community concerns more into account when investing abroad. In October 2007, China’s State Council for example stressed the importance of “paying attention to environmental resource protection, caring for and supporting the local community and people’s livelihood” in such projects. An integrated policy package with specific recommendations for Chinese foreign investors is currently under preparation. Such measures indicate that China is interested in being a responsible partner in international finance.

The Ilisu Project has become an international symbol of a substandard project. China is not bound by agreements of the OECD governments, but it helped establish the World Bank standards which the dam on the Tigris is violating. The independent panel of experts which documented the violation of these standards included a well-known Chinese resettlement specialist. So far, China has not yet received an official funding request from Turkey and has not yet had to take a decision on Ilisu. If Sinosure does approve support for the project, it will be a slap in the face of the European governments who have put the interests of the environment and local people before their own export interests. Chinese support for the Ilisu Dam would endanger the efforts of a coordinated approach among international funders on the environment, and could start a new environmental race to the bottom.

You can read his full post here. For more background on the Ilisu dam project, take a look these previous posts.

Turkey's Uighur Problem, Cont.

In a previous post, I talked about the challenges Turkey faces as it tries to take a stand on the violence in China's restive Xinjian province. On the one hand, Ankara needs to satisfy domestic demands that it say and do something about what's happening, as one Turkish columnist recently put it, "in our ancestral lands." On the other hand, the Turkish government's response could be limited by a desire to not harm its growing trade and political relations with China.

When I wrote that, I forgot to take into account the "Erdogan Factor." Speaking to reporters live on NTV television last Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who has a habit of doing away with diplomatic niceties -- said: "The incidents in China are, simply put, tantamount to genocide. There's no point in interpreting this otherwise." So much for a moderate response.

Now it appears the Chinese may be fighting back. According to Reuters, China is sending Turkey the message that Erdogan should take his words back. From the Reuters piece:

In an editorial headlined "Don't twist facts," the English-language China Daily said the fact that 137 of the 184 victims were Han Chinese "speaks volumes for the nature of the event."

The death toll included 46 Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.

The newspaper urged Erdogan to "take back his remarks ... which constitute interference in China's internal affairs...."

....Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told his Turkish counterpart by telephone on Sunday the Urumqi riots were a grave crime orchestrated by the "three evil forces," state news agency Xinhua said, referring to "extremism, separatism and terrorism."

It will be interesting to see where things go from here. The events in Xinjiang and the fate of the Uighurs there continue to be a major story in Turkey, so the domestic pressure on the Turkish government for a response will likely continue. At what point, though, does the Chinese response go beyond editorials in the China Daily?

Also, in a column in today's edition of Today's Zaman, Andrew Finkel takes a look at the Turkish response to the violence in Xinjiang and asks some interesting questions, particularly if Erdogan's use of the word "genocide" might come back to haunt him. You can read the column here.

[UPDATE -- I have a piece up on the Christian Science Monitor website that takes a further look at Turkey's Uighur dilemma. You can read it here.]

Turkey's Uighur Problem

Although the recent harsh government crackdown on protestors in next door Iran received a collective yawn from Turks, the violence in China’s Xinjiang province has the country up in arms. Of course, Iran maybe a neighbor, but faraway Xinjiang (or "East Turkistan," as some call it) is home to the Turkic Uighurs. A group of Turkish merchants in the town of Denizli, for example, recently set fire to Chinese-made products, while Turkey's Industry and Trade minister, Nihat Ergun, called for a boycott of Chinese goods (something his aides were quick to point out was his personal view and not government policy). Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, promised to bring the situation in western China to the attention of the United Nations' Security Council, where Turkey is currently a non-permanent member.

But responding to the violence in Xinjiang is also proving to be problematic for Turkey. China blames the events there on "separatists" and calls it an internal issue and one of territorial integrity. For Turkey, which has not been afraid to use strong measures in dealing with its own "separatist" problem and which has its own concerns about "territorial integrity," these should sound like very familiar words. (For example, a court in southeast Turkey (or what some refer to as "Kurdistan") recently jailed a man for "terrorist" activity. His crime? Carrying a coffin draped with the PKK flag.)

Turkey is also looking at China as an important trade partner, with President Abdullah Gul and a large group of businessmen having made a recent visit there (including to Urumqi, site of the recent violent events), so it's response could be limited by that. Hurriyet's Semih Idiz looks at Turkey's dilemma in a column in today's Hurriyet Daily News:

Developments in China’s restive region of Xinjiang are causing a stir in Turkey, where pressure is mounting on the government of Prime Minister Erdoğan to do something about Beijing’s brutal suppression of the Uighurs; a close relative of the Turks who speak a language close to Turkish.

The pressure is understandable given that many Uighurs fleeing from Chinese oppression have taken refuge in Turkey over the years and that these refugees are in close touch with ultra-nationalist and Pan-Turkic groups capable of creating serious political unrest the country.

Already, demonstrators earlier this week scuffled with police outside the Chinese embassy, and such public outpourings of sympathy can be expected to continue in the coming days and weeks depending on how the situation unfolds….

….Many question just how far Ankara will go, given that there is an economic giant and a potential, if not actual, superpower at the other end of the dispute here, namely China. It is also interesting to note that Russia has come out in support of Beijing, accusing "separatists" -- meaning the Uighurs -- of sparking the events, and saying that this is "China’s domestic issue," a warning to outsiders not to interfere.

Moscow’s position is understandable, given the fact that it too has restive regions that are predominantly Islamic and therefore amenable to "outside interference." With Russia and China as permanent members of the Security Council, it is unlikely that any Turkish initiative, if it embarks on one, will result in a condemnation of China. It is still unclear as to how the violence in Xinjiang started, despite a history of Chinese oppression in the region. Reports suggest that the ethnic violence left scores of innocent people dead on both sides, inflaming calls for vengeance the ethnic communities.

There is also the fact that China is using the terms "separatism" and "fundamentalism" as cornerstones for its explanation of the events in Xinjiang. If Turkey were to go beyond calls to respect human rights in the region, and appear to be supporting Uighur separatism, it is clear that this will rebound with China referring to the Kurdish issue and minority rights in this country.

Then there is the growing Turkish-Chinese common interest, especially in the economics, and this was exemplified by President Gül’s high profile official visit to that country recently. Another factor affecting how much anger the government can inject into its rhetoric in support of the Uighurs.

It is noteworthy in this context that Ankara apparently recently twice refused to issue a visa to Uighur activistand US resident, Rabia Kader, who is seen by Beijing as the person behind all the trouble. Kader herself confirmed the view to broadcaster NTV.

Clearly Ankara was not prepared to upset China in the past and if Kader is, however, issued a visa now, China will likely see it as an act of defiance. The question is if Ankara is ready for such an act of defiance at this time.

Given the conditions, Turkey will likely remain in the "We are deeply concerned and call for restraint" mode, rather than embark on an all out diplomatic campaign against China.

The government, however, will have to ward off widespread domestic criticism given that opponents of the Justice and Development Part, or AKP, are already using the issue with great relish. Whatever happened to spark the start of the events in Xinjiang, it is clear that Prime Minister Erdoğan and his party could have done without this crisis at an already difficult time in terms of domestic politics.

You can read the full column here.

Ultimately, it seems like Turkey's response will be more about placating domestic critics (and they have already started making their voices heard) than about making an impact on the international stage regarding the events in China. Taking on a superpower is not so simple. Ankara certainly feels it must say something about what's happening in Xinjiang, but how far does it want to push things with China?