The world may be divided between countries whose governments are trying, however tentatively and uncertainly, to disentangle themselves from the Chinese Communist Party’s vision of global community of shared future—and countries whose governments are all too happy to become entangled or more entangled. Maybe there’s also a third category, countries whose policies are too fuzzy to pin down.
Turkey is in the getting-more-entangled category. According to Dorian Jones’s video report for Reuters and Voice of America, “An announcement that China’s car giant BYD will build a billion-dollar factory in Turkey marks a big turnaround in relations between the two countries. The move comes after years of tensions over Ankara’s support of Chinese minority Uyghurs.”
Tariffs
One thing the partnership means is a way for China to evade new EU tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports.
CNN reports that the deal was announced “just days after provisional additional duties on imports of Chinese-made EVs into the European Union came into effect. The tariffs, ranging from 17.4% to 37.6%, are aimed at stopping a flood of cheap Chinese cars built with what the EU deems unfair support from the government.
“Turkey is in a customs union with the EU. That means vehicles can be exported from the country to the trading bloc tariff-free.”
But a much more urgent question for Uyghurs who have sought refuge in Turkey is whether the shift in the relationship between China and Turkey also portends a shift in Turkey’s attitude toward the Uyghurs, one of the peoples who are systematically persecuted by the brutal Chinese government.
Extradition
Cagdas Ungor of Marmara University says, “There are rumors that the Chinese side is pressing for the ratification of this extradition agreement—that they would want Uyghurs in Turkey, some of them at least, to be returned to China to be tried in China, et cetera.”
If you’re a Uyghur who might be hauled back to China to be imprisoned and tortured, et cetera, with or without a meaningless trial, even “rumors” that China is pushing its new partner to surrender Uyghurs must be terrifying. But it’s more than rumors, especially since the value of Turkey as a refuge from China has been in doubt for years now. The Chinese Communist Party is never not pushing its agenda.
