The "Democratic NATO" message from Davutoğlu

"Turkey is not a lone country outside NATO that is being persuaded by NATO. It is at the center of NATO."

These words come from the answer Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu gave to a question about the missile shield NATO wants to place in Turkey, at a reception given by the Turkish consulate during the Xiyan stop of his China visit. Setting aside that it largely allayed the concerns about the missile shield, in my opinion no sentence could better reflect the spirit that is upending all the habits and rote formulas of the period we are in in Turkish Foreign Policy.

Until now Turkey was in a contradictory position in its relations with Europe, the US and NATO: it could not produce its own policy, and could not even internalize the international organizations it belongs to and is one of the largest contributors to, seeing them as an external power. NATO membership was seen as a fate dragged into under forced conditions. Turkey was a country that had to fulfill all the obligations arising from this membership but could not exercise any of the rights arising from it. Whatever NATO wanted, Turkey would do. Yet as Davutoğlu said openly, if this is a union, and Turkey is a member of this union for one consideration or another, nothing could be more natural than a proportionate contribution to the formation of the decisions taken here.

The "proportion" of the contribution, however, may in fact be parallel not only to the power one holds or to one's contribution to the union. Politics is in a way the art of using one's available means in the most efficient and effective way. Frankly, political will, ability or initiative, as well as style, is a very decisive factor here. The model in this regard is no different from the politics model at a more micro level. It can very well be shown by Turkey, one of its strongest members, that NATO's threat perception rests on false information or delusions. Turkey, after discussing at length a proposal brought by one of the members, can exercise its right to open it to debate through a diplomacy it will conduct among the other members of the union.

Turkey is showing that, in the decision processes of the organizations it belongs to, it at least aspires to move beyond being a passive spectator and opportunity-seeker and to become an actor that sets direction. It has so far successfully reaped the positive results of holding this aspiration. In an article of mine soon to be published in the Mediterranean Quarterly (Winter, 2010), I assessed this concept as "Politics at home, politics in the world: the return of the political in Turkish Foreign Policy."

Within this concept, Davutoğlu, openly stating that Turkey aspires to play its own role in the decision-making process, says "We do not want a Cold War belt, a Cold War psychology again around us. We do not have a perception of threat directed at us from our neighbors," concluding his words in China, one of the possible targets of the missile shield.

This rapprochement between Turkey and China, despite the shadow of the missile shield agenda, reminds us of the reality that a climate that increasingly draws peoples or countries closer to one another against a Cold War belt will prevail in the world. Indeed, the new politics in the world gives priority to doing justice to this reality.

The EXPO, the occasion of Davutoğlu's presence in China, rests on the idea and reality of the interdependence of the world's cities despite the politics of their countries. The theme of the EXPO in Shanghay has been set as "Better city – Better life." The development of cities and their having a certain quality of life also leads cities, if not in spite of their states then in parallel with them, to an effectiveness and a dependence. As the urbanization rate rises, it becomes inevitable for countries to open to the outside world and adapt their political orders to this opening.

Just as in Turkey, in China too, as urbanization reaches a certain level, the state is compelled to open more and to integrate with the world. The urbanization China is experiencing in this regard, owing to the size of the country's population, is on a scale that will make its effect felt across the whole world. An urbanization rate that took Western countries such as England, France and the Netherlands, with their tiny populations by comparison, 80-120 years (for example its rise from 17.9 percent to 39.1 percent) took only 22 years in China.

On the one hand this rapid rate has constituted a great advantage for China in terms of labor, but the urbanizing population, because of the excessive speed of urbanization, begins to make its demands, which are not visible at first, felt in a short time, and China is gradually losing its quality of being the world's cheapest labor market. Because at this stage of urbanization, the rise of the service sector, of education-based diversification of labor, and of the middle class ties China tightly to the world with a second great bridge, as a consumer market as much as a producing power.

China has realized that it cannot see its labor reserve as merely a material advantage that will make it stronger in the world. Because the owners of that labor are becoming citizens who will also demand a better life.

Turkey, which is experiencing all the political and social consequences of a similar urbanization process, albeit on smaller scales, has advantages in reading China well that are too many to count.

With its new foreign policy concept, Turkey also has the vision not to squander this process on the threats or ideological assessments of others.