Türkiye-China relations, the secret of 45 billion dollar exchanges

According to the international group Tasnim News, after a long time, it is supposed to The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey should visit China at the head of a political-economic delegation. That too in a situation where there is still no news about the possibility of Erdogan-Biden meeting.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is going to Beijing at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, and is supposed to Singh to receive Vice President and Chairman of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of China, Hakan Fidan. Then, at the head of a high-level delegation, he will go to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region to meet the Uighur Turks. Fidan is going to meet Turkish citizens living in China on June 4-5 in Urumqi and Kashgar.

Turkey has recently taken measures to strengthen its relations with all regions of China and It has an embassy in Beijing, consulates in Qingdao, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong. In a situation where the volume of bilateral trade between Turkey and China will reach more than 48 billion dollars in 2023, and China is Turkey’s first trading partner in Asia.

Although Turkish officials have already visited the Uighur Turks But this time the story is different. Because in the past few years, the issue of Turkey’s descent-racial continuities with the Turkic speakers of the Caucasus and Central Asia has made the Organization of Turkic States become an important political and cultural tool for Erdogan’s team. Therefore, it is expected that Fidan’s meeting with the Uyghur Turks will also have a special meaning for the radical nationalist current of Erdogan’s partner in Ankara. If nationalism about the Uighur Turks is raised too much, China will hurt Ankara’s financial interests with harsh trade reactions.

During the past decade, Turkey’s economy has become highly dependent on China, and if intermediate goods, raw materials and facilities are imported If it is not from China, Turkey will lose at least 30% of its total export capacity to other countries. Because Turkey’s economy has low productivity and the country’s exports depend on a small profit and no added value, during which some goods and raw materials arrive in Turkey from China and are assembled in Turkey using cheap labor. And then, by exporting the final product to different parts of the world, Turkish companies get a small profit.

It is clear that this level of economic dependence on China is a matter of concern and Erdogan is trying hard to Change this equation. But the fact is that at least in the current situation and in the era when the Turkish economy is completely in crisis and in debt, Turkish manufacturers will still depend on China.

Balance strongly in favor of China

China now owns a huge global market, as the second largest country in the world. The world importer receives raw materials and intermediate goods from most large and medium players. But Turkey’s share of goods exports to China, in the most optimistic conditions, has not even reached half a percent, and the record of Turkey’s annual exports to China reached 3.3 billion dollars in 2022 and did not exceed it in 2023.

In other words, Turkey ranks 61st in the list of countries that export goods to China, and it is unlikely that Turkey’s ranking will change soon. Meanwhile, Turkey is the 28th destination for the export of Chinese goods, and Chinese companies exported 42 billion dollars worth of goods to Turkey in 2022, which is equivalent to one fifth of Turkey’s total imports!

According to the volume of foreign trade, China will be Turkey’s second trading partner in the world from 2022.

While these data show China’s significant influence in the global economy and trade, the potential It also reveals the development of bilateral trade and economic relations between Turkey and China. But the problem is that Turkey still has not found much competitive capacity to export goods to China. Uploaded/Image/1403/03/13/1403031315535459830221864.jpg”/>

Free trade agreements (FTA) with countries such as Cambodia, Costa Rica, Macao, Maldives, Mauritius, Pakistan, Peru , Singapore, Chile and the ASEAN countries, Turkey has hoped that this country can reach a more beneficial economic relationship with China, but the evidence shows that Turkey’s manufacturing and industrial sector is still not very prepared and there are big problems such as the inability to finance , the lack of foreign investors entering the Turkish market and the huge debt of the Turkish government and the private sector to global markets have made it more difficult for Turkish companies to dance with the yellow dragon.

China still has not responded to Turkey’s request

One ​​of the most important expectations of Turkey from China, the subject of attention Financial institutions and large Chinese investors are interested in Turkey’s economic capacities, especially in the tourism and construction sectors.

Turkey expects China to enter this market with full force. Why? For two reasons: First, in the past few years, Turkey has faced a serious shortage of foreign exchange resources, and financing is a difficult task even for the largest Turkish companies. Second, the Chinese are the record holders of investments in the region. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Report, China is the second largest investor with about 181 billion dollars. It is the country that made the most foreign direct investment in the world in 2021 and was ranked the fourth country with the most investment in the world.

But not in this area nor in The financial resources of the One Belt One Road project, Turkey has not yet achieved any special points. The main goal of the Belt and Road Initiative, which was launched in 2013 with the aim of revitalizing the historic Silk Road, is to strengthen infrastructure, trade, develop financial relations and cultural ties between countries and regions.

Projects Investment especially in fields such as energy, transportation, logistics, communication, urbanization and environment, attracted Turkey’s attention and in the situation where a total of 147 countries have participated in the Belt and Road Initiative, Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia , Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria have benefited far more than Turkey. Image/1403/03/13/1403031315550566130221904.jpg”/>

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey announced that during Hakan Fidan’s visit to China and his meeting with the officials of this great Asian power and the world, these issues will be discussed and investigated: Turkey and China share opinion on the issue of Gaza and Palestine, developments in Ukraine, the security of global supply lines and the Red Sea, China’s investment in Turkey, especially in the field of new technologies, efforts to coordinate the Belt and Road Initiative and the road and initiative of the Central East-West Caspian Corridor, bilateral trade exchanges with a more balanced and stable structure and some transport corridor projects.

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