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| Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Wiki) |
By Julia Famularo
On April 8, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Xinjiang (East Turkestan), the ethnically Uyghur, Turkic-speaking, and Muslim region controlled by China. It was the first time in 27 years that a Turkish head of government visited Xinjiang, which was historically linked to Turkey via the Silk Road. Erdogan brought with him a delegation of key officials and about 300 business leaders. While in Urumqi, the Turkish leader stated his desire to invest in a nascent industrial development zone in Xinjiang.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Chinese political and economic liberalization program, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union, facilitated the gradual reemergence of traditional religious, cultural, intellectual, social, and economic linkages between Xinjiang and its Central Asian and Turkic neighbors. Beijing increasingly welcomed trade and economic investment from neighboring republics, even as it demanded guarantees that they wouldn’t support an independent East Turkestan. At the same time, Ankara optimistically began to envision a Turkish sphere of influence from the “Adriatic Sea to the Chinese Wall.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat