ИСТИНА

For roughly a decade, there has been going a debate about Turkey’s alleged strategic shift from the West to the East. Indeed, bilateral relations and trade between Turkey and China have been growing substantially. Some in Turkey have even advocated for their country to leave NATO and join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) instead. However, considering the structural diverging interests between Ankara and Beijing on several issues (Uyghurs, Central Asia, Africa), as well as Turkey’s intertwined economic and strategic interests with the European Union and NATO, one should not overestimate the nature of Turkey’s global strategy adjustment. Rather than shifting to Asia or China, we argue that Ankara promotes a hedging strategy in order to become its own pole between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The war in Ukraine comes yet as another evidence supporting this assessment.