Evaluating the Impact of Culture and Identity on Sino-Turkish Cooperation in the Belt and Road Framework

Abstract

This study examines the material and intellectual factors that make inter-state cooperation possible from a constructivist perspective and aims to assess the impact of identity and culture on Turkey's planned partnership with China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI, which envisions the creation of a new China-centered economic-political structure and value system in the long run, seems to be a manifestation of China's desire to transform the existing order of international relations. The article examines from a constructionist perspective the question marks raised by Turkey's participation in this large-scale project, where Westernized intellectuals are the main constitutive element, and where Turkey has been included in the economic, political and military architecture of the West since the Second World War with the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan and NATO membership.