Use/misuse of Chinese BRI investment? BRI-related crony capitalism in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Crony capitalism as a type of capitalism entailing the close relations of political authorities and business circles based on mutual profit maximization is not a new phenomenon in Turkey. However, crony relations have accelerated with the Justice and Development Party (Adalet Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) rule. Despite growing scholarly work on crony relations in the AKP era, the literature remains inward-oriented without analysing the external dimension of crony capitalism, which this article intends to alleviate by providing an analysis of crony capitalism and bringing back the external dimension through an analysis of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-related crony relations. It argues that the case of Turkey demonstrates how the BRI is used to feed instrumental cronyism without the promotion of China and how recipient countries use and misuse Chinese BRI investments to create alternative resources for the government’s cronies.

KEYWORDS:

• BRI
• China
• crony capitalism
• cronyism
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See AidData (2021) for ICBC’s provision of syndicated loans for PPP healthcare projects of Turkey such as Kocaeli Health Campus Project, Elazığ City Hospital Project, Bursa Integrated Health Campus Project and İzmir Bayrakli Integrated Health Campus Project.

2. See AidData (2021) for other banking cooperations between China and Turkey.

3. In August 2021, it was announced that the purchase contract was suspended. However, no statement has been made as to whether the negotiations will continue or not (Ersoy et al. 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nilgün Eliküçük Yildirim

Nilgün Eliküçük Yıldırım is an associate professor in the department of international relations at Atılım University in Ankara. Her research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Turkey-China Relations, IPE, social psychology.

Gözde Yilmaz

Gözde Yilmaz is an associate professor in Atılım University, Turkey. Her further research interests are norm diffusion, European integration, external Europeanization, EU-Turkey Relations, EU-China Relations, minority rights and non-discrimination in the EU and Turkey.