BALANCED POWER

n an increasingly multipolar world, Turkey—like many nations of its stature—remains open to new partnerships. In part because of leadership dynamics and in part because of its growing involvement in international conflicts, NATO’s second-largest military is forging strong ties in the international theater. Needless to say, keeping track of Turkey’s changing global alignments is a dizzying task.

One way to track its international relations is to keep tabs of its top-level diplomatic meetings— meetings seemingly more important than ever in a world defined by its heads of state. Between January and November 2019, President Erdoğan officially met with Russian President Vladimir Putin six times, US President Donald Trump two times, and Chinese President Xi Jinping once. While it is difficult to measure the long-term significance of these meetings, they are certainly telling of the type of relationship Turkey has with each of these three nations.

The conflict in Syria has in part driven these leadership dynamics. Following the US military’s partial withdrawal from northeast Syria, the Turkish military quickly launched Operation Peace Spring—a campaign aimed at pushing back the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces from the

ITurkish border. Following the campaign, Turkey struck consecutive deals with the US and Russia to dictate the power balance in northeast Syria. In short, the outcome of the weeks-long affair diminished American influence and increased cooperation between Turkey and Russia in the region.

China brokered its power in the financial theater and largely away from the headlines. Beijing hopes to double its investments in Turkey to USD6 billion by 2021—largely in the infrastructure and energy sectors and as part of its wide-reaching Belt and Road Initiative. In June 2019, China’s central bank transferred USD1 billion to Turkey in the largest-ever amount as part of a lira-yuan swap agreement signed in 2012. Turkey has signed similar swap agreements with other nations in an effort to decrease the global reliance on the dollar and euro for trade.

Turkey hopes to boost trade with all three nations. It has set identical USD100-billion annual trade targets with the Russia and the US—whose 2018 trade levels stood at USD25.7 billion and USD20.6 billion, respectively. Turkey has not set such a target with China—where trade stands at USD23.6 billion—though it has indicated it is seeking a better balance of trade, as nearly 90% of the figure is Chinese exports to Turkey. ✖