Pitfalls of Turkish-Chinese relations in a microcosm
Source: Sabah
By James M. Dorsey
Turkish soccer player Alpaslan Ozturk’s decision to risk
fame and wealth by expressing support for the embattled Turkic Uighur minority
in Xinjiang reflects pressures in China’s ties to Turkey, its most complex
relationship in the Muslim world and a key node on the Silk Road that Beijing hopes to revive with massive
investment in infrastructure across the Eurasian land mass.
In Mr. Ozturk’s case, two Chinese clubs could simply
penalize the player for his remarks by calling off plans to hire him after he
demanded that ten percent of his future salary be donated to Uighurs in ‘East
Turkestan.’ By using the term employed by nationalist Uighurs rather than
Xinjiang, the Chinese reference to the region, Mr. Ozturk poured fuel on the
fire.
In a Facebook posting quoted by Turkish media, Mr. Ozturk, a
22 year-old Belgian-Turkish national, said that “it is not right for me to
breath in a country that skins our Muslim brothers alive. I thought so and I
decided so. We see it on the television and in newspapers every day. Uighur
Turks are being slaughtered since they are fasting (during the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan)."
Mr. Ozturk said his statement was his way of rejecting the
Chinese offers.” I condemn a country that slaughters people for being Muslims
and fasting. I wasn't thinking of going to China when I received offers. Since
I wasn't willing to live there, I laid down these conditions and thus the
transfer was cancelled," he said.
Mr. Ozturk’s statement may not have been appreciated in
Beijing, but it resonated with Turks, including the government, whose affinity
to the Uighurs is based on both ethnicity and religion. Turkey is also a major
gathering point for Uighur exiles and opposition groups that have long
complained about discrimination and restrictions on following their Muslim
faith.
As many as 28 people were killed last month in a clash in
the city of Kashgar when police stopped a car at a checkpoint. It was the
latest in a series of incidents involving protests as well as political
violence in recent years.
“While Mr. Ozturk’s decision may of course be his own
personal preference, it is hard to separate the footballer from the politics in
this case,” said John Konuk Blasing, who first highlighted
the soccer player’s action on his blog, thisisfootballislife.com
Mr. Ozturk’s statement provided grist on the mill of Turkish
nationalists as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to forge a coalition government
in the wake of last month’s parliamentary election that failed to produce an
absolute majority for his ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP). If
successful, discussions to form a coalition with Turkey’s ultra-nationalist, Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP) which traces its roots to pan-Turkism could complicate
relations with China.
Politicking over Xinjiang was evident in recent reporting in
pro-government media of a visit to Beijing by the left-wing Peoples’ Democratic
Party (HDP), which dashed the AKP’s hopes in the election and became the first
pro-Kurdish party to be represented in parliament. An AKP-MHP coalition could
also deal a death knell to a Turkish-Kurdish peace process that would end violence
in south-eastern Turkey and grant Kurds greater rights.
To sully the HDP, a pro-AKP newspaper published a bloodied
image of Xinjiang saying that a HDP delegation was visiting Beijing “despite
the East Turkestan torture.” An opposition newspaper, meanwhile, published time
a statement by actors and academics calling for Uighur independence in
Xinjiang.
Despite broad-based Turkish support for the Uighurs, China
has to be more circumspect with Turkey than its clubs were with Mr. Ozturk
given Turkey’s status as a regional power in Central Asia and the Middle East
and its geographic location at the western end of the One Belt, One Road (Silk
Road) initiative that has become a cornerstone of Chinese policy.
Turkey dropped official support for Uighur separatist groups
following a 2010 visit by then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during which China
upgraded relations to strategic. The two countries hoped that the emphasis on
cultural and economic rights backed up by Turkish investment in Xinjiang would
help dampen nationalist sentiment. At the same time, China favours Turkey over
Egypt or Saudi Arabia for the education of its imams.
The Turkish-Chinese strategy has yet to pay off. Global
Times, a Communist Party newspaper, estimates that some 300 Chinese nationals have
joined Islamic State (IS), the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria
and Iraq.
An IS video with Chinese subtitles portrayed in October 2014
"a Chinese brother before he did a martyrdom operation (suicide bomb
attack)” in the town of Suleiman. Months earlier, Chinese police aided by
satellite images detected dozens of cross-border tunnels in northwest Xinjiang
that could facilitate the infiltration of operatives of Uighur separatist
groups.
Fears of the IS’s potential impact on Xinjiang, has prompted
some Chinese analysts to call on their government to join the US-led coalition
in Iraq. “China lacks military capabilities to join anti-terror operations….
China can instead provide funding, equipment and goods for the allies. It can
also help by providing training local army and police personnel, an area in
which China is experienced,” said prominent Chinese Middle East scholar Ma
Xiaolin in a posting on his blog. He noted that China was already sharing
intelligence with coalition partners.
Chinese concerns were bolstered when IS identified East
Turkistan as one of its target areas and the group’s caliph, Abu Bakr Al
Baghdadi listed the People’s Republic at the top of his list of countries that
violate Muslim rights in his declaration of the caliphate. Maps circulating at
the time on Twitter purporting to highlight IS’s expansion plans included
substantial parts of Xinjiang.
Mr. Ozturk is not known as an IS supporter even if the group
may emerge on the ground in Xinjiang as one of Uighur nationalism’s foremost
promoters as a result of Chinese policies that choke of more moderate
expressions.
"I said what I said. It is not a message bearing the
intention of showing off. I just posted a message on my Facebook profile to my
friends who follow and love me. I never thought this would come to this point.
I said what I said and it was obvious,” Mr. Ozturk said.
James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.
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