Why China's Air Force in Turkey?

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2010-10-12 09:26
China's Su-27 fighter
Sometime during September, an unknown number of China's People's Liberation Army Air Force Russian-built Su-27 and Mig-29 fighters landed at the huge Konya airbase in Turkey's central Anatolia region. Within a few days they were training with Turkish US-built F-16 fighters in the first ever military exercise of its kind between China and a NATO country.
The brief training exercise, significantly held under the aegis of the 'Anatolian Eagle' series of joint military manoeuvres with NATO and other friendly powers, reflects multiple factors that will take some time for Turkey's allies to fully decipher. From a western perspective, China's sudden appearance on NATO's southern flank and other Chinese military adventures in the so-called 'Stans of Central Asia at about the same time was provocative in a period when relations between Beijing and Washington and many European countries are strained by a mixture of economic and military tensions.
The other, more strategic message embedded in the dog fights over Anatolia is nearer to China's core concerns. The deployment will strengthen the agenda of those within China's government and military who are keen to demonstrate Beijing's reach and ability to surprise. While some remain unsure whether the training event ever actually occurred, most are looking at what the episode may reveal about Turkey's motives and the country's future relationship with NATO and the European Union.
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2010-10-12 09:26
F-16 fighter
Certainly, China and Turkey appear an uneasy fit for any form of military co-operation beyond the institutional round of bland functions and stilted social events intended to somehow soothe mutual suspicions and calm often barely concealed enmities.
In particular, both countries have recently experienced serious differences over the treatment of the Uighur community.
It is certain that Turkey's increasingly fraught relationship with the European Union will have contributed to the decision of invite Chinese fighters to train in NATO airspace.
Another, perhaps irresistible, motive for the invitation to the Chinese airmen may have been to emphasize the difference between Turkey and Greece. The parlous state of the Greek economy has left the country in the position of permanent mendicancy, most recently relying on China to buy its debt and finance its key shipping sector. Turkey's action, by contrast, demonstrated – if mainly to a domestic audience – the country's independence and sovereign parity with a major power.
China's motives for accepting a Turkish invitation to send its aircraft to Konya also reflects interests that have little to
do with the location or significance of their host. While Beijing is now far more comfortable seeing its military deployed
further from the country's self-determined core areas of interest, China's often cautious diplomats appear to be increasingly overruled or ignored by political and military factions who value the utility of such displays for a nationalistic domestic audience.  (From Worldbulletin)
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