Revamped Turkic states group ‘adds to extreme uncertainty’ at China’s door
- The newly renamed Organisation of Turkic States has three member nations that border Xinjiang in far western China
- Beijing-based analyst Yuan Peng says ‘a new force is rising in the heartland of world geopolitics’
26 Dec, 2021
An upgrade to a grouping of Turkic-speaking states is adding to “extreme uncertainty” in Central Asia, a heavyweight policy adviser to the Chinese government has warned.
“[It] has swiftly transformed into its current form and it’s obvious that it’s aiming at something beyond an ‘organisation’,” Yuan Peng, president of the Beijing-based China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), wrote on the think tank’s social media account.
Yuan was referring to the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States, which was renamed the Organisation of Turkic States in November during its eighth summit in Istanbul.
Its member states now include Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, three of which share borders with China’s Xinjiang region, a focal point of Beijing’s geopolitical outlook. Observer members include Hungary and Turkmenistan.
Yuan, who is trained in US affairs, gained renown after delivering a lecture in December 2020 on national security to the Politburo, the Communist Party’s 25-member ruling body led by President Xi Jinping. He also made policy recommendations at the address, according to an official readout.
Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang have become a focal point of international scrutiny and Western governments have imposed sanctions and called for diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February.
Yuan warned of the growing solidarity of the Turkic states organisation, which said on its website it was built on “common history, common language, common identity and common culture”.
“[It] is trying to imitate the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Arab League, and to form a so-called league of Turkic states,” Yuan wrote.
“This means a new force is rising in the heartland of world geopolitics, adding to the European Union, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.”
The Eurasian Economic Union is a Russia-led economic trade bloc that covers major states in Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with a focus on counterterrorism, is a China-led political, economic and security pact in the region.
Yuan argued that the formation of the organisation added to the “extreme uncertainty” in the region already arising from the confrontation between Russia and Europe, Russia-Ukraine tensions, Turkey’s ambitions and the changing political landscape in Afghanistan.
The Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States was established in 2009 as an intergovernmental organisation to strengthen peace and stability, promoting wide-ranging cooperation, according to its website.
During its summit in November, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the pact had developed its institutional structure and boosted prestige within its region and beyond, and therefore was ready for an upgrade.
Zan Tao, a historian who specialises in Turkey and Central Asia, said Beijing should be cautious when assessing the group’s short-term impact, given its internal division and influence by major powers such as Russia.
“In the short term, we should be prudent in assessing its direct impact,” Zan said. “Historically speaking, lots of international cooperation in Central Asia hasn’t seen much substantial progress … In the long term, it should deserve more attention and research.
“The idea of pulling together Turkic-speaking nations to form a federation or state – what we usually call pan-Turkism – is only an illusion by some.”
Zan added that except for Azerbaijan, other member states in the pact all had some reticence about developing deeper ties with Turkey. Uzbekistan’s exiled opposition was hiding in Turkey; Kazakhstan saw itself, not Turkey, as the central player in the region and always took Moscow’s interests seriously; and Turkmenistan was a permanent neutral state that usually played a minimal role in international affairs.
Pan-Turkism is among Beijing’s top talking points when discussing threats of terrorism in Xinjiang and its controversial security measures in the region.
Chinese
officials have blamed political development in the Central Asian states
– home to a number of Turkic-speaking ethnic groups that broke into
nation states after the collapse of the Soviet Union – as fuelling the
rise of separatism among Uygurs in Xinjiang.