Turkey as seen from China, China as seen from Turkey

A Chinese person saying to a Turk, "how can you Turks tell one another apart, amazing, you look so alike!" is told as a joke. What is really meant is that the Turks are amazed at how the Chinese, though they look so much alike and are of course far more numerous, manage to recognize one another. Moreover, it is not only the Chinese: viewed from Turkey, it is probably hard to tell most of the Far Eastern peoples apart, the Chinese and the Japanese, the Koreans and the Vietnamese, because when not looked at closely, that is, when looked at from afar, they all look alike.

On a TV program the other day, against the familiar secularist discourse that all headscarved women are of a single type, I gave this example and tried to explain that the truth of the matter stems from looking at headscarved women as a foreigner from a great distance. Otherwise, looked at a little more closely or from within, it is impossible not to see that the headscarf style of dress has in fact become enormously differentiated. However you look at it, this is in fact a typical indicator of how "foreign" and "distant" the reaction against the headscarf is.

I often remembered this example during Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's visit to China, while thinking about how distantly we look at China in every respect and therefore how hard we find it to notice even the major features, let alone the details. We badly need a close look that would let us see the details of China, the world's second economy after the US, which, if it maintains today's pace of growth, will overtake the US and become first in only ten years, in 2020.

Our relations with China, whose prime minister we hosted in early October, had become strained because of the events in Urumqi in July 2009. But within a short time, thanks to the positive approaches of both Turkey and China, relations became more intense than before. There is no doubt that the economic opening policies adopted by both countries have a serious effect on this. The rational attitudes of the governing cadres are undoubtedly very decisive in the development of countries' economies, but in this day and age it is in any case hard for a ruler who cannot behave rationally to remain in office for long. Turkey and China are two rising economic and political powers of the world. The openings and the world's increasing integration inevitably bring the two countries closer to each other.

Immediately after the events in Urumqi, China put into effect an urgent action plan to repair the situation quickly by bringing the region's national income level, which was 50 percent lower than other regions, to the same level as the other provinces. According to the plan, by 2020 the national income of the Uyghurs will have been equalized with the rest of the country. To this end it has declared the region a special economic development zone. Thus, by advancing the thesis that the opposition in Urumqi is related to economic backwardness, it in fact recalls the familiar thesis about the Kurdish question in our country.

How well this thesis holds is a separate matter, but it is also an indisputable reality that China's rising economy is forcing it to become more rational and more open in every respect. China feels the need to present itself as "good" to the world more. It also cares about explaining itself to the world. That is, in the new term, it attaches special importance to public diplomacy. The reasoning in public diplomacy is gradually catching up with it, too, and it realizes that the best way of presenting itself well is to be good in practice, and it is putting this into practice to some extent. Since Urumqi is one of China's most important gateways to the world, it is engaged in a serious search and effort to ensure that no problem arises here again and that any problems that may arise do not flatten its image.

In the bilateral relationship, as much as China's search for being rational, Turkey too has a search.

The trade volume between China and Turkey exceeded 14 billion dollars in 2009, but only 1.599 billion of this volume came in the form of Turkey7s exports. To close this trade deficit Turkey needs to export more. In fact this search, which began quite some time ago, has already borne fruit: for example, in the first 8 months of 2010, despite the economic crisis, Turkey's exports to China rose 62.8 percent over the same period last year, reaching 1 billion 451 million dollars. Imports in the same period rose 37.9 percent to 10 billion 670 million dollars. The trade volume in the first 8 months of the year reached 12 billion 121 million dollars.

Undoubtedly, even despite the crisis, the closing of this gap does not happen by itself. The role of political will, search and initiative is very important in this. There is no doubt that today's political cadres, with the President, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, have taken this initiative in concert. On this journey we have once again observed that even following Ahmet Davutoğlu's vision with strategic depth and his diplomacy that exceeds human capacity is dizzying.