Turkey and China to revive Silk Road

The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, was built during the Ottoman Empireand has accumulated large amounts of treasures in the past 400 years, including thousands pieces of chinaware of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The earliest record of the palace using China’s chinaware dates to 1457. The chinaware preserved in the palace is a testimony to the long and friendly exchange between Turkey and China.

Turkish experts say the chinaware is a direct proof of the Ottoman Empire’s diplomatic and commercial ties with China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when the two sides sent special envoys to each other and had established close cultural connections.

They believe that it was through the Silk Road that Turkey built commercial ties with China for the first time in history. These ties used to halt temporarily, and the Chinese government’s proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative provides an opportunity to revive those historical ties.

As two countries in eastern and western ends of Asia, China and Turkey has both expressed their willingness to rebuild the ancient Silk Road, so as to realize regional interconnectivity and promote exchanges in wider areas. 

Currently, China is integrating its Belt and Road Initiative to Turkey’s Central Corridor plan, which is thought can help China open wider to Europe. Turkish leaders have clearly expressed their support for cooperating with China to build the high-speed railway project and a nuclear power plant project in Turkey.

Both China and Turkey are G20 members, and have similar dreams to pursue national renewal. They have solid foundations to carry out practical cooperation.

Turkey is an important road and railway link between London and Beijing, and Turkey is willing to serve as a bridge between the East and the West, Turkish experts say.

They believe the two countries should build “important partnerships” in fields including mining, agriculture and stock farming.

They don’t consider the imbalance of trade between China and Turkey as a bad thing, and Turkey should attach importance to developing trade with China, and should not simply wait for China to increase its import from Turkey.

The experts say that Turkey should introduce more of China’s modern arts and literature to its people instead of only calligraphy, kongfu and tea, to let the Turkish people learn more about China’s modern arts and the life of Chinese young people. The two sides should work further on fostering people-to-people exchanges, so as to deepen mutual understanding.