Cultivating seeds abroad: China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth diplomacy

ABSTRACT

China and Turkey are among the world’s top emigrant sending countries. How and why have they invested in their diaspora youth, particularly over the last two decades? The significance of young diasporans for international affairs remains understudied. Building on the concept of ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’, we provide a rare comparative study investigating diaspora diplomacy and show that China and Turkey similarly engage their diaspora youth through homeland tours, linguistic and educational programmes, and empowerment strategies. These initiatives seek to maintain Chinese and Turkish presence abroad by forging loyal support, which is crucial for regime survival and these countries’ global reputation as strong powers. Yet host countries have also interpreted these endeavours as a security threat. Our findings draw from official documents, speeches, polls, and news sources in Chinese, Turkish, and English and provide a better understanding of foreign affairs in the context of state sovereignty, security, and authoritarianism.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora youth diplomacy
• Turkey
• China
• CCP
• AKP
• foreign policy

1. Introduction

Given the heterogeneity of groups within the diasporic space, a plethora of emigrant-sending states have developed varied engagement policies depending on the perceived socio-economic or political potential of specific diaspora groups (Tsourapas, 2015). The People’s Republic of China (hereafter PRC or China) and the Republic of Türkiye (hereafter Turkey) are two countries that have crafted bifurcated outreach policies targeting select diaspora groups with ideological proximity (Han, 2021; Arkilic, 2021; Arkilic, 2022a). Of particular relevance for this article, both countries have also developed specific youth-tailored initiatives. How and why have China and Turkey invested in diaspora youth, particularly over the last two decades?

While scholars have written extensively about both China’s and Turkey’s diaspora outreach policies, their programmes and ambitions targeting diaspora youth remain underexplored, particularly from the angle of diaspora diplomacy. By focusing on the Chinese and Turkish cases, this article refers to the concept of ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’ as the mechanisms and strategies that governments devise in order to construct and mobilize the potential capacities of diasporic youth agents so that they can insert socio-political influence and create legitimacy about home state policies and interests in their host countries (Senay and Arkilic, forthcoming). The article argues that both states see their young diasporans as highly influential diplomatic actors for advancing foreign policy objectives due to their perceived advantaged position as individuals born and raised in or well-versed with their countries of settlement. China and Turkey engage the younger segments of their diasporas through heritage tours; language, scholarship, and internship programmes; and various empowerment and confidence-building strategies. These initiatives seek to maintain these states’ presence abroad by investing in young diasporans’ capacity development and by forging loyal and unassimilated support for their respective regimes. This is crucial for regime survival and these countries’ global reputation as strong powers.

Diasporas form ‘a transnational community whose members (or their ancestors) emigrated or were dispersed from their original homeland but remain oriented to it and preserve a group identity’ (Grossman, 2019). China has ‘a broad and ever-expanding definition of who should be subject to extraterritorial control’, which includes entire ethnic and religious groups, students, and even individuals of Chinese descent who are not citizens (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021). Since the mid-2000s, Turkey has employed a similarly broad conceptualization of its diaspora communities. Ankara now promotes a new diaspora identity that evokes a sense of obligation from its diasporic and kin communities as well as students, sometimes regardless of citizenship status (Arkilic, 2022a).

This article compares and contrasts China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth diplomacy for several reasons: First, both China and Turkey are among the world’s top emigrant sending countries (International Organization for Migration, 2020). The Chinese diaspora is estimated at around 61 million (Ding, 2022). Turkey-originated diasporans, on the other hand, number around 6.5 million, with approximately 5.5 million in Western Europe (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023a). This means that despite its relatively smaller size, the Turkish community is the largest Muslim diaspora in Europe and represents a powerful political lobby group, similar to Chinese diasporans. Second, despite their demographic, historical, and institutional differences, China and Turkey both actively target their diaspora youth, and their specific programmes and goals bear striking similarities. For example, common themes include the cultivation of national identity; focus on language, culture, and education; and investment in leadership and empowerment. Additionally, as countries with authoritarian tendencies, China and Turkey use heavy-handed tactics to police dissent through strategies of transnational repression and co-optation (Tsourapas, 2021). Hence they are important cases for the growing scholarship on state-diaspora relations in authoritarian settings (Moss, 2016; Glasius, 2017; de Reguero et al., 2021; Grossman, 2022; Yefet, 2023). Third, although China’s and Turkey’s diaspora policies have been widely analyzed, intergenerational differences have not received much attention, with a few notable exceptions (Arkilic, 2022b; Böcü and Baser, 2022; Senay, 2022; Wackenhut and Orjuela, 2023). The existing studies on the topic have not approached the issue from a comparative diaspora diplomacy perspective, instead drawing from long-distance nationalism and extraterritorial authoritarianism scholarship and looking at only one country instead.

This article contributes to the burgeoning literature on diaspora diplomacy, which challenges the domestic-international binary that has marked the field of International Relations for a long time (Shain and Barth, 2003; Adamson and Demetriou, 2007; Aggestam et al., 2023). While diasporas are now seen as diplomatic actors in their own right (Ho and McConnell, 2019), scholars have not yet fully explored the significance of young diasporans for international affairs despite the observable importance of young people for home countries’ diplomatic ambitions. In addressing these gaps, we provide a cross-national study investigating diaspora diplomacy, with a focus on diaspora youth. For the purposes of this article, we pay specific attention to second- and third-generation diasporans born outside their ancestral land and living in countries of birth or settlement.

Though they possess some similarities, China and Turkey are, indeed, very different. The former is a country in East Asia, with an estimated population of 1.4 billion governed under a one-party socialist republic and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (UN, 2021). Turkey, however, is a newly industrialized transcontinental country between Southeastern Europe and Western Asia that operates under a unitary, presidential, and multi-party system. Ruled by the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) government since 2002, Turkey has a total population of approximately 84 million (World Bank, 2021). Echoing Kaya and Drhimeur’s comparison of Turkey and Morocco, this study will ‘unfold similar diaspora and foreign policy strategies in different socio-political contexts’ (Kaya and Drhimeur, 2022). While our study’s dependent variable is similar diaspora youth-oriented goals and tactics that China and Turkey have developed, the last section of the article also briefly discusses the limits of them from a comparative perspective.

The findings of this article draw from official documents, speeches, polls, surveys, and news sources in Chinese, Turkish, and English. In the case of China’s approach, we mostly refer to state media outlets or internal governmental documents. One key source is Qiaoqing, a classified compilation of policy recommendations, memoranda, reports, and discussion papers highlighting various elements of overseas Chinese affairs work, known in Mandarin as qiaowu. These references remain the most accurate reflection of China’s official diaspora engagement policies and offer readers unique insights into the inner workings and covert aspects of qiaowu. Internal documents from the mid-2000s are compared with contemporary news sources and reports drawn directly from the official website of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (OCAO). With regard to the Turkish case, we predominantly use official publications, news stories, and secondary sources related to Turkey’s diaspora policymaking institutions. These include the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB), the Yunus Emre Institute (YEE), and the Union of International Democrats (UID, previously called UETD). Since Turkey solidified its official diaspora engagement policy in the early 2000s, the relevant sources span from the early 2000s to the present day.

This article is organized into four parts: First, it provides an historical overview of China’s and Turkey’s diaspora policymaking. Next, it delves into the concept of ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’. In the following sections, the article hones in on China’s and Turkey’s specific diaspora youth-tailored programmes, and compares and contrasts their effectiveness. Finally, the study discusses broader foreign policy and security implications arising from the findings and offers ideas for future research.

2. A brief history of China’s and Turkey’s diaspora policymaking

China’s foreign policy objectives seek to cultivate and foster an international operating environment that is amenable to pursuing state (and therefore CCP) interests. While diplomacy is often attributed to the realm of official channels, Beijing has gone beyond an ‘all-of-government’ approach and extended diplomacy as the responsibility of an ‘all-of-society’ United Front. A key part of China’s United Front work engages with overseas and ethnic Chinese communities through a vast and well-resourced range of extra-territorial policies and activities also known as qiaowu.

Qiaowu spans three centuries (To, 2014). Even before the establishment of the PRC by the CCP in 1949, previous Chinese governments sought to attract political and financial support from their diaspora communities (Ding, 2022, p. 61). While relationships with overseas Chinese had existed under the Qing dynasty since the latter half of the 1800s, more formalized policies for engagement began in the early twentieth century. After the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1911, the Bureau of Overseas Chinese Workers was established by the Beiyang government in 1917 to protect the rights of Chinese labourers sent to Europe for the war effort. In 1926, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (OCAC) was set up during the reign of the Kuomintang government (KMT) to encourage foreign direct investment and young people’s return to China. The CCP inherited the qiaowu apparatus from the KMT after the establishment of the PRC, with the KMT relocating to Taiwan, where it continued its own rival diaspora operations (To, 2014).

Back on the mainland and under CCP rule, the OCAC and later the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese Association (FROC, formed in 1956) jointly served to unite both overseas Chinese and returnees for patriotic national reconstruction (Liu, 2022a). The third organ driving qiaowu was the United Front Work Department (UFWD), tasked with managing, co-opting, and coercing domestic and foreign opposition groups for CCP interests. While the OCAC, the FROC, and the UFWD became defunct during the Cultural Revolution, this was only a temporary hiatus. In 1978, the OCAC was re-established as the OCAO. The FROC was later re-instated in the same year and the UFWD in 1979 (To, 2014). All three institutions perceived overseas Chinese communities as vital for advancing China’s interests, with the UFWD and the FROC being the party apparatus, and the OCAO being the government apparatus (Liu, 2022a).

The overseas Chinese pro-democracy movement, the Taiwanese independence movement, Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Xinjiang Uyghur independence movement comprise the ‘Five Poisons’ that must be dealt with in China’s diaspora affairs. Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, qiaowu has become more centralized, ambitious, and concentrated on the expansion of soft and sharp power for the articulation of Beijing’s foreign policy agenda through ethnic Chinese communities (Groot, 2018; Suzuki, 2019). With this shift in focus, in 2018, the OCAO was subsumed into the UFWD and the FROC in line with China’s strategic repositioning of its diaspora politics ‘to serve its geopolitical goals of global ascendancy’ (Liu, 2022a, p. 1257).

Diaspora youth and overseas students have long been influential in Chinese politics. Many political leaders in the 1911 Revolution that toppled the Qing court, including Sun Yat-sen, the first provisional president of the ROC and the first leader of KMT, were Chinese emigrants who returned from overseas. Several other early political leaders of the KMT and the CCP had studied abroad before taking up political positions. Chinese students also organized political protests across Europe during the 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference to prevent the transfer of control of Shandong from Germany to Japan (Ding, 2022, pp. 63-64).

After 1949, the Soviet Union and other communist countries received many Chinese students. The Maoist state expected students to bring back technological and ideological know-how to China, however it strictly controlled the ideology and the total number of student migrants. Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy in 1978 and the introduction of self-sponsored overseas studies as a legitimate means of exit in 1984 increased the number of young Chinese studying abroad. However, during and after China’s student movements for democracy in 1989, China once again adopted restrictive policies toward overseas students (Liu, 2022b). Against the backdrop of China’s economic modernization over the last three decades, the Chinese government initiated many programmes to woo the younger segments of the overseas population and to reverse brain drain (Ding, 2022). Today China pays ample attention to young diasporans’ geopolitical value as ‘grassroots ambassadors’ (minjian dashi) in expanding China’s diaspora outreach and global influence, and in enhancing its national image and reputation abroad (Liu, 2022b, pp. 702–705). As such, youth exchanges and dialogues are increasingly becoming the focus of many bilateral (often government-funded and -driven) initiatives, as detailed throughout this article.

In a similar vein, since the mid-2010s, Turkey has increasingly perceived its citizens abroad as a diplomatic power. In the post-World War II era, the signing of the guest worker agreements rendered Europe and Australia a popular destination for Turkish citizens. Even during and after large-scale Turkish emigration in the 1960s and 1970s, Ankara showed an interest in its overseas community - albeit without a clear roadmap. In the earlier decades of emigration, Turkey’s broader diaspora policy had an economic, religious, and security focus, and state policies were largely ad hoc. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, and the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) acted as the main institutions dealing with diaspora affairs during this time period. Until the 2000s, overseas citizens were not officially referred to as a ‘diaspora’. Instead, they were labelled as ‘guest workers,’ ‘immigrants,’ and ‘Turks abroad’ in official documents, emphasizing their temporary status (Arkilic, 2022a).

The AKP government has formed new diaspora institutions, such as the UID (formed in 2004), the YEE (formed in 2007), and the YTB (formed in 2010). Similar to China’s agenda, Turkey’s current diaspora strategy, shaped by its Ottoman past, is predominantly expansionist and political. Turkey’s select diaspora groups, including diaspora youth, are viewed as an important political bloc to promote official foreign policy goals. These goals include the denial of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide, the promotion of Turkey as a strong and independent power, the preservation of a distinct Turkish identity in ‘an increasingly Islamophobic Europe’, and the disempowerment of Kurdish separatists, Gülenists (now called by the Turkish government the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization), and other dissident groups (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023b).

In the pre-AKP era, Turkey sought to connect with overseas youth by sending teachers and imams. Therefore, these early outreach attempts had a religious or cultural orientation as opposed to today’s overtly political endeavours. The previous Turkish governments’ main goals were to teach Turkish language, culture, and Islam to children of migrants and to prevent their assimilation into host countries. For example, the Inter-ministerial Common Culture Commission was formed in 1971 and the Directorate General on Training and Education of the Children of Workers Abroad was created in 1976 as part of the Ministry of Education. In 1976, the Ministry also began to send Turkish language teachers and education counsellors to several European countries, forming an overseas branch called the Directorate General for Services for Education Abroad. In the 1980s, an increasing number of Turkish language teachers were dispatched and the Turkish Cultural Centers were launched to promote Turkish culture, language, and art abroad (Aksel, 2019). While these remain important themes, as argued previously, political motivations have appeared as a new priority in Turkey’s youth-oriented diaspora framework in the 2000s.

3. Diaspora youth diplomacy

Public diplomacy refers to ‘statecraft activities and engagements beyond traditional diplomacy, predominantly cultural and informational, that are designed to inform, influence, and engage global publics in support of foreign policy objectives tied to national interests’ (Snow, 2020). Diaspora diplomacy, on the other hand, can be defined as ‘the desire to advance foreign policy interests, relations and negotiations via diasporic communities at multiple levels (local, national and supranational)’ (Arkilic, 2022a, pp. 2-3). Some scholars maintain a conceptual distinction between public diplomacy and diaspora diplomacy based on whom these policies target (Brinkerhoff, 2019), while others view diaspora diplomacy as ‘one of several public diplomacy instruments’ (Gilboa, 2022), forming ‘an additional means of illuminating a nation’s cultural or soft power’ (Stone and Douglas, 2018).

Scholars have also noted a subtle difference between diaspora engagement and diaspora diplomacy. While the former promotes a state-oriented perspective that centers around home states’ activities and discourse aimed at engaging with their nationals abroad (Gamlen, 2016), the latter details not only diaspora engagement policies but also explores how states’ diaspora engagement affects foreign relations (Arkilic, 2022a). In other words, diaspora diplomacy better explains how diasporans are activated and mobilized to accomplish certain goals. More notably, it goes beyond implications for the domestic sphere alone by challenging the domestic-international binary that has shaped the field of International Relations for many years.

While earlier studies have emphasized the mutually beneficial nature of diaspora diplomacy for both home and host states (Rana, 2012), in recent years, scholars have begun to draw attention to the controversial nature of diaspora diplomacy. For example, Arkilic shows that Turkey’s broader diaspora diplomacy under the AKP has worsened diplomatic relations between Turkey and Europe (Arkilic, 2022a, p. 2). Ding, Zhu, and Chen, too, argue that Beijing’s desire to engage the Chinese diaspora to endorse China’s diplomatic goals, to boost the country’s global influence, and to gather information about internal and external enemies (Ding, 2022) has caused tensions between China and various countries (Zhu and Chen, 2023). In this article, in addition to examining China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth engagement motivations and goals, we look at implications for foreign affairs and the limits of such engagement.

Existing scholarship has explored states’ targeting of youth groups for establishing relationships with strategic publics through, for example, youth festivals or scholarship programmes (Varpahovskis, 2017; Koivunen, 2022). However, the importance of youth in diaspora diplomacy scholarship remains understudied. By taking ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’ as its conceptual basis and using the case studies of China and Turkey, this article argues that young individuals matter for diaspora diplomacy more than many other diaspora groups due to their perceived advantaged position as highly-skilled and resourceful people born, raised or educated in their countries of settlement. As ‘the younger generations’, it is also expected that they are easier to mobilize than other groups. As Rilke Mahieu writes, sending states often target youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five since these are the years in which individuals are more likely to change their political views and become formally familiar with government, politics and citizenship (Mahieu, 2019). Sending states also show an interest in youth due to young diasporans’ acquaintance with social media and digital technologies, which are often used by states to engage diasporas (Kolbaşı-Muyan, forthcoming). As noted previously, we define ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’ as the mechanisms and strategies that governmental actors devise in order to construct and mobilize the potential capacities of diasporic youth agents so that they can insert socio-political influence and create legitimacy about home state policies and interests abroad. For China and Turkey, it is important to harness a loyal and unassimilated group ready to defend homeland interests abroad. Coercion and intimidation tactics are frequently employed by both countries in responding to diaspora youth dissidence.

4. The focal points of China’s outreach to diaspora youth

4.1. National identity

Forging a homogenous Chinese identity is critical in the CCP’s approach to overseas Chinese youth. The CCP seeks to dominate and determine what being ‘Chinese’ means, whereby ‘Chineseness’ as a national identity professes Han-chauvinism, Mandarin language, and a distinctive mainland-derived culture and history. Where alternative articulations of these concepts might exist, there is a pro-active effort to counter, subvert, and re-write these in alignment with CCP doctrine (Liu, 2005). Accordingly, over the last 30 years, qiaowu has worked to spur nationalistic patriotism based on common ancestry, culture, friendship, and sentimental village connections (Qiaowu ganbu peixun jiaocai bianxie xiaozu, 1993; Ran, 2022; Xu, 2022; Cao, 2023). Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and other non-Han peoples have often become a part of a larger invented or imagined category in an aggressively inclusive way (Millward, 2022).

In appealing to these interests, a prominent platform utilized is the design and delivery of root-seeking tours. Since 1980, hundreds of thousands of overseas Chinese have been ‘welcomed in’ to Guangzhou, Fujian, and other provinces for cultural reconnection (Louie, 2004). Qiaowu authorities offer root-seeking activities through extensive propaganda efforts showcasing China’s economic development (Chen and Wei, 2023). The 2004 Blue Book of Research Results Concerning China’s United Front Theory refers to the cohesion of Chinese nationality and cultural identity to promote patriotism and socialism for China, while at the same time strengthening the attractiveness of the CCP (Guangdong Institute of Socialism, 2005). Similarly, the goals listed in the Retrospective of Guangdong Province’s Summer Camps for Youths of Chinese Descent included: (1) propagating Chinese culture and strengthening national consciousness; (2) deepening knowledge of the motherland; (3) fostering participants’ attachment to their native village and arousing nostalgic emotions; (4) intensifying cooperation between Chinese and foreign youths, and enhancing solidarity and friendship between them; and (5) advancing overseas Chinese affairs (Louie, 2004).

Using root-seeking tours as a key vehicle to influence and co-opt youth remains largely unchanged since their inception, with current United Front work programmes guiding the promotion of culture, heritage, and homeland attraction (Yuncheng Urban Collective Industrial Association, 2021; Zheng, 2022). Over the last decade, these programmes have specifically targeted those aged 16 and under. These are pre-emptive attempts to influence diaspora youth before they can participate in rival tours (particularly those organized by Taiwanese) or expose themselves to ‘alternative’ conceptions of national identity (To, 2014). In recent years, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these activities have been administered online as virtual Chinese Study Tours, expanding the outreach even further (Jin, 2022).

4.2. Language, culture, and education

As part of China’s ‘welcome in’ strategy, overseas Chinese teachers are also invited to the country to attend workshops specializing in the younger generations’ linguistic and cultural development in line with the Ministry of Education’s objectives (OCAO Propaganda Department, 2007). In addition to these inbound programmes, China dispatches Mandarin language teachers to ‘go out’ to diaspora communities and works collaboratively with local hosts to organize festivals and exhibitions for CCP propaganda purposes. In doing so, it seeks to: (1) enhance relations among pro-Beijing groups, Chinese embassies, and qiaowu cadres; (2) support overseas Chinese communities; (3) deepen understanding of diaspora work; and (4) lighten qiaowu workload by effectively sub-contracting delivery efforts to host partners (OCAO External Affairs Department, 2005a). As an example of this ‘going out’ strategy, the theme ‘neighbourhood and family’ has been used to deploy hundreds of ‘community academic tutors’ to overseas Chinese student groups under the guise of providing counseling and guidance. However, in reality, this has been to cultivate direct lines of patriotism and loyalty to the CCP (Huaqiao University, 2022).

The best-known example of China’s cultural and educational outreach to international audiences, including ethnic Chinese diaspora communities, occurs through Confucius Institutes, a formative element of United Front work (Schäfer, 2022). This model requires a host university to supply classrooms and students in exchange for teaching assistants, textbooks, and funding provided by China. Since 2006, Beijing has ensured a direct channel of control over the management of Confucius Institutes. The external section of the CCP Propaganda Department transfers money to the Minister of Education for Institute activities (Shambaugh, 2007). The chief organ for managing Confucius Institutes, Hanban, was rebranded in 2020 to avert suspicions of these links, resulting in a new non-governmental foundation for Chinese language education and cooperation under the Ministry of Education (Chen, 2020).

To bolster pro-Beijing sentiment on campuses around the world, PRC students sent abroad are expected (and legally obligated) to demonstrate their loyalty to the CCP. A recent news article highlights how patriotic education in China might impact overseas Chinese youth identity and values. Behind these efforts are legislative tools, including Beijing’s 2024 Patriotic Education Law and 2020 National Security Law in Hong Kong that hold these students, alongside foreign nationals living outside China and Hong Kong, criminally liable under Chinese jurisdiction (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2024).

Against this backdrop, universities in some countries - notably the United States and Sweden - have terminated their agreements with Confucius Institutes (Green-Riley, 2020; Myklebust, 2020). Germany, which is home to 19 Confucius Institutes and more than 50 Chinese Students and Scholars Associations, has also expressed concern over Chinese influence (Diamond and Schell, 2019; Strack, 2023) Other countries, such as Australia and Canada have had similar tensions with China, such as when Chinese students publicly criticized professors teaching at Australian and Canadian universities for not offering pro-CCP lectures (Diamond and Schell, 2019, p. 154). Consequently, a raft of cultural associations supported through United Front connections have been established as replacements (Lin, 2022). As such, qiaowu in this space not only continues to grow despite setbacks, but also adjusts to new challenges effectively.

4.3. Leadership and empowerment

Forums, conferences, and capacity-development workshops in China also provide leadership and empowerment opportunities, attracting hundreds of young diasporans at a time (Dong, 2012). In the past, some of these initiatives sought to persuade overseas youth to return and contribute to China’s socio-economic development (Jimei United Front Work Department, 2022). These schemes have evolved over the past two decades with the objective of educating and co-ordinating diaspora youth as future leaders capable of operating across the qiaowu infrastructure (OCAO External Affairs Department, 2005b; China Overseas Chinese Network, 2022). To influence diaspora youth on a global scale, qiaowu cadres target leaders of pro-Beijing organizations and select individuals for participation in fully subsidized programmes in China (OCAO Policies, Laws, and Regulations Department, 2007). Chinese embassies vet applicants to prevent undesirable consequences that may clash with CCP interest (OCAO Internal Affairs Department, 2005).

Once hooked, pro-Beijing young diasporans are then mobilized for the state’s political objectives. One of the most high profile examples of this occurred during the 2008 Olympics when thousands of Chinese students rallied in Australia to walk to the Parliament to defend the CCP against ‘anti-China’ protestors (including members of the pro-Tibetan, Taiwanese independence, and Falun Gong movements). There are similar accounts detailing the activities of the Chinese Students’ Associations in France and Canada (Diamond and Schell, 2019, pp. 152–170). In New Zealand, too, Beijing is very active via its embassy in Wellington and the Overseas Chinese Center in Auckland, which encourage bloc voting, fund-raising, and political protests in favour of CCP interests nationwide (Diamond and Schell, 2019, pp. 152–170-74). Mobilizing such cohorts can sometimes be considered a ‘rent-a-crowd’ tactic (and there is evidence of many 2008 Olympics protest participants being compensated and incentivized for their time and energy) (To, 2014, pp. 31–34). Yet these are also prominent opportunities for aspirants to demonstrate leadership and a sense of empowerment across their communities, and are often more about expressing loyalty to the PRC Embassy. Students and youth groups are no exception. Appealing to personal ambition and ego among other things, qiaowu seeks to embolden and cultivate a strong sense of pride for representing China, and encourages individuals to step up and defend the country against criticisms or embarrassment.

China’s diaspora youth diplomacy has sought to improve bilateral relations too. In 2017, the OCAO and the All China Youth Federation provided logistical support to the New Zealand Ministry of Youth Development and the New Zealand Chinese Youth Federation to co-host the New Zealand China Council Young Leaders Forum. This event brought together youth from both countries for capacity-development and paved the way for a broader range of UFWD organizations (including Chinese municipal governments, provincial education bureaus, Confucius Institutes, and Sister Cities connections) to take over co-hosting in 2018 and 2019 (Education New Zealand, 2019; New Zealand China Trade Association Young Associates, 2020). Likewise, several NGOs linking French and PRC members and sponsors have emerged in France, such as the Young Leaders Program created by the France-China Foundation (Diamond and Schell, 2019, p. 158).

However, such official interaction has since given way to a growing awareness of (and response to) foreign influence and espionage (Brady, 2018; Garnaut, 2018). Surveillance and punishment targeting overseas citizens has also been a serious concern for many countries. For example, the sentencing of a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota in the United States during a visit to China for allegedly posting critical tweets about Xi Jinping and the targeted intimidation of Hong Kong Chinese who were filmed by pro-CCP Chinese during a demonstration in Germany in 2019 have attracted global media attention (Schäfer, 2022, p. 18). Australia’s 2018 foreign interference laws specifically designed for China are also worth mentioning here (Needham, 2023). The last few years have seen more backlash in the form of white papers and other official statements (New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, 2023). In addition, efforts to raise awareness and enhance resilience against foreign interference and transnational repression have gained impetus out of national security interest (New Zealand Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2022). In short, these instances of bilateral cooperation now undergo rigorous scrutiny.

5. The focal points of Turkey’s outreach to diaspora youth

5.1. National identity

In a similar vein, Turkey seeks to enhance young diasporans’ attachment to the ancestral homeland and to familiarize them with Turkish history, culture, and heritage. As the YTB notes:

It is important for our young people to get to know and internalize our national, spiritual, historical, and cultural values and to transfer them to the next generations (…) Our youth who know their own culture and history well and who turn this knowledge into a love bond with their homeland will have the motivation to compete with their peers in every field, and be the pride and future of Turkey abroad (YTB, 2020a).

The YTB’s Evliya Çelebi Cultural Trips Programme provides funding to Turkish diaspora organizations and non-profit educational centers to organize heritage tours. This programme has declared its central purposes to be the deepening of national and spiritual ties between the homeland and young people living abroad and intensifying belonging to Turkey. As Senay notes, ‘nation-branding and heritage-making through these place-based and place-making practices articulate with the state’s dual aim of strengthening ties with the children of overseas citizens and winning their loyalty’ (Senay, 2022, p. 347). Any diasporan aged 10–29 holding Turkish citizenship or a Blue Card (which provides certain socio-economic and political benefits to people who become Turkish citizens by birth and renounce their Turkish citizenship with permission) is eligible to apply for the fully-subsidized experience. The first module of this programme, Meet Your Homeland, targets children aged 10–15; the second module, Youth Bridges, caters to the needs of individuals aged 16–29; and the third module focuses on entrepreneurship (YTB, 2020b). Between September and January each year, selected participants from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia discover Turkey’s historical landmarks. In 2019 alone, 70 projects brought 3,200 individuals to Turkey as part of this initiative (YTB, 2019).

The YTB also collaborates with the Ministry of Youth and Sports to bring young members of the diaspora to its Youth Camps. This programme takes place in May and August yearly, and men and women are admitted during different periods. To attend the programme, participants must be 18–23 years old and hold Turkish citizenship or a Blue Card. The YTB covers accommodation, food, and transportation expenses. Since the programme’s creation, more than 600 young diasporans from Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have come to Turkey (YTB, 2022a). In April 2019, 122 young people from ten countries took part in the programme, which provides a wide range of sports, theater, and dance activities (YTB, 2022b).

5.2. Language, culture, and education

The YTB also aims to improve the teaching and learning of the Turkish language abroad. The Turkish Hour Project Support Programme provides funding to Turkish civil society organizations, educational centers, and non-governmental organizations in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia to help them provide weekly two-to-three-hour Turkish language classes to school-age diasporans (YTB, 2021a). The Anatolian Reading House Project similarly promotes language and culture through twenty newly-built libraries around the world (Anadolu Okuma Evi, 2023). The director of the YTB, Abdullah Eren, emphasized in 2022 that such projects contribute to the growth and permanency of Turkey’s diasporans in Europe (TRT Haber, 2022).

In order to teach the Turkish language to second- and third-generation diasporans, the YTB funds postgraduate teaching programmes in various universities in Turkey as well. Overseas university students holding Turkish citizenship or a Blue Card are eligible to complete a two-year postgraduate programme, but are expected to teach Turkish language in their countries of residence upon graduation (YTB, 2022c). Moreover, the YTB has embarked upon a Preschool Bilingual Education Support Programme to teach Turkish to children aged 0–6. The programme makes payments to Turkish civil society organizations, educational centers, and other non-governmental organizations in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia so that they can provide weekly classes for 32 weeks and establish bilingual kindergartens and play groups (YTB, 2021b).

In May 2015, Turkish President and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended two rallies in Hasselt (Belgium) and Karlsruhe (Germany), which emphasized the importance of this priority. 14,000 people from all over Europe attended the meeting in Karlsruhe to hear Erdoğan say: ‘I ask you to cling to your own identity and language. If you lose your language, you lose everything. You need to speak first to be able to think. If you can’t speak Turkish, you can’t even think’ (Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, 2015). At the rally in Belgium, he conveyed a similar message and reminded participants that in order to maintain Turkish presence in Europe constant, it is important to teach young generations Turkish (Arkilic, 2022b).

Another diaspora institution, the YEE, has opened 63 Turkish Cultural Centers in more than 40 countries that provide Turkish language classes, workshops, and exhibitions on traditional Turkish arts and culture (YEE, 2020a). Since 2009, the institution has taught Turkish to around 50,000 students through its Cultural Centers and 100,000 students through its broader programme (YEE, 2020b). The YEE’s My Preference is Turkish initiative also allows Turkish to be taught as an elective or compulsory secondary foreign language across primary, secondary, and higher education institutions in Poland, Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Japan, Egypt, Montenegro, and Georgia. Moreover, Turkish language teaching sets have been sent to primary and secondary schools, and logistical and educational support has been provided to Turkish language teachers abroad (YEE, 2023a). The YEE similarly runs the Turkish Summer School Programme that brings hundreds of students to Turkey every summer for a one-month intensive Turkish language class, accompanied by cultural heritage tours (YEE, 2023b). In addition to these in-person initiatives, both the YTB and the YEE offer online support in the form of the Digital Culture Platform and the Turkish Language Portal (YEE, 2020c).

5.3. Leadership and empowerment

The YTB’s Diaspora Youth Academy Programme provides capacity-development training to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Launched in 2013 and originally called the Young Leaders Programme, it offers workshops on intercultural communication, human rights, European history, migration, and international relations to produce ‘role models’ and active citizens. These platforms allow younger members of the diaspora to have direct contact with ‘good models’ (such as successful business entrepreneurs and civil society leaders) and to ‘shape the future of the Turkish diaspora’ through networking, character-building, and individual development (Senay, 2022, p. 348). Since its creation, more than 300 young diasporans have benefited from this opportunity (YTB, 2020c). For example, the YTB held the Diaspora Advocacy Academy in Washington DC in September 2022 ‘to improve diaspora youth’s lobbying skills and to enable them to better advocate for the Turkish nation’s interests’ (YTB, 2022d). The YTB holds separate Youth Meetings to stay in touch with diaspora youth and manages the Human Rights Education Programme, which brings a select group of young Turkey-originated individuals to Turkey to inform them about Islamophobia and anti-discrimination, the workings of the European Court of Human Rights, and civil and legal advocacy strategies (YTB, 2019). There is also another scholarship programme designed to provide legal training to diasporans so that they can easily report Islamophobic acts and discrimination, and defend homeland interests.

In addition, the YTB’s Turkey Internship Programme allows overseas university students to complete a one-month internship at Turkish public institutions. It was introduced in 2016 to ‘inform second- and third-generation diasporans about internship opportunities; employment and business areas; and public, private, and non-governmental employers as well as to improve their Turkish language skills’ (YTB, 2021c). In 2019, 144 diasporans served as an intern in Turkey as part of this initiative (YTB, 2019).

In a similar vein, the YEE’s Cultural Diplomacy Academy provides a three-month training in Istanbul to scholars, university students, young professionals, journalists, and civil society experts ‘to identify Turkey’s cultural diplomacy priorities and to raise the twenty-first century’s cultural diplomats’ (YEE, 2018). The modules are on international relations, diplomacy, and project management, among other themes (YEE, 2018, p. 130). The YEE and the YTB also jointly offer the Turkey Scholarship to enable overseas students to receive education at universities in Turkey at no cost. The programme began in 2012 and received 10,000 applications. As of 2023 there are more than 150,000 alumni (YTB, 2023a).

These initiatives and others have lent themselves to diaspora youth diplomacy opportunities. For example, a Turkey-originated United States-based diaspora organization called The Young Turks has held rallies and press speeches against the recognition of the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as genocide, which has received the support of Turkey’s Consul-General in New York City (Anadolu Ajansı, 2014). Similar protests on the Armenian issue have taken place in France and Germany with active diaspora youth participation (Arkilic, 2022a).

The UID’s youth branches abroad have also organized many talks, seminars, and campaigns against the threat of Islamophobia, Gülenists, and Kurdish separatists as well as to promote Turkey as a strong and independent power (Londra Gazete, 2016; Anadolu Ajansı, 2017). The UID’s website notes that their other priorities are to boost Turkey-originated diaspora youth’s political participation in Europe, to advocate for their dual citizenship rights and bilingualism, and to support their integration (UID, 2022). The UID’s youth branches have held diaspora rallies in Europe to promote the AKP’s domestic and foreign policy goals and commemorative events highlighting symbolic dates, such as the July 2016 coup attempt and Turkey’s military intervention against Kurds in Afrin, Syria in 2018. Other Turkey-originated diaspora youth groups with close links to the AKP, such as the youth branches of the Diyanet’s overseas institutions and Osmanen Germania (which is known for violently suppressing young opponents of the AKP) have organized similar events (Böcü and Baser, 2022). France and Germany have become increasingly concerned over some pro-AKP diaspora youth groups, as evidenced by Germany’s decision to ban Osmanen Germania and France’s decision to ban the Grey Wolves (which has many youth branches endorsing the AKP’s agenda) (Arkilic, 2022a; Poeschel and Yener-Roderburg, 2024).

6. Diaspora youth diplomacy efforts in comparison

While the above section highlights significant similarities between China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth diplomacy framework, their outreach to ‘the next generation’ differs in several ways. Since China’s history of diaspora governance has long preceded Turkey’s, Chinese youth-tailored endeavours are more evolved, institutionalized, and better funded. Key differences also emerge in how younger generations perceive China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth programmes. China’s qiaowu efforts have been mixed. Recent polls in Australia document that Chinese Australians have greater levels of trust in Beijing than the average Australian (Hsu, 2021). Similarly, while Chinese students appreciate democratic values in Germany, they tend to challenge criticisms aimed at China (Mao, 2020). Another article about China’s efforts to woo Taiwanese youth suggests that United Front work might be having a gradual ‘constraining effect’ on Taiwanese society and the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government (Hille, 2024). Still, China’s success in this realm overall remains largely limited (Wong, 2022). Especially well-integrated second- and third-generation overseas Chinese hold little patriotic sentiment towards China given they have predominantly built their lives outside China and CCP indoctrination (Louie, 2004). Similarly, a recent survey conducted with 182 overseas Chinese in Fiji and Tonga concludes that overseas Chinese support for China's diaspora diplomacy is unlikely to grow substantially in the future (Zhang, 2023).

China’s international image also took a huge hit with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and other political developments: Beijing’s self-styled wolf-warrior diplomacy, aggressive behaviour on territorial issues (such as the South China Sea), the crackdown on youth and civil society in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the Orwellian approach towards Uyghurs have all negatively impacted how China is perceived across the globe. International surveys have highlighted that an increasing number of people view China as more of a threat than a friend (Silver et al., 2020). Furthermore, United Front work techniques and their implications have caused backlash across the world, as discussed previously. Recent scholarship shows that China ‘conducts the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world’, (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021, p. 15) reaching at least 44 countries (Lemon et al., 2023). Similar to Turkey, it often relies on cooperation with autocratic host states to target its dissident citizens (Michaelsen and Ruijgrok, 2023).

Despite its shorter history, Turkey’s diaspora youth policy has a bigger potential to attract heightened support in the years to come because emigrants (and their descendants) from Turkey are the least integrated group in most European countries, including Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In addition, their feelings of discrimination stand at a very high rate in these countries (Arkilic, 2022b). A survey conducted with old and young diasporans from Turkey in Europe has also identified that younger diasporan respondents are more likely to report discrimination and physical attacks than older respondents (Center for American Progress, 2020). Turkey’s diaspora diplomacy efforts with this cohort are thus likely to be well received. Indeed, third-generation Turkey-originated individuals in Germany feel a stronger connection to their homeland than first- and second-generations because of their feelings of exclusion (Dieper, 2018), which provides a conducive setting for diaspora youth diplomacy. Host country context also matters as some European countries, such as France, have tolerated Turkey’s diaspora diplomacy more than others (e.g Germany), as seen within the context of French laïcité and a perceived failure to localize Islam (Arkilic, 2022a, p. 196).

Several overseas participants attending Turkey’s youth outreach programmes have confirmed that these platforms have instilled a sense of patriotism and gratitude in them and have contributed to their empowerment and mobilization. One recent case is from January 2023, when a group of young diasporans from Europe and the United States travelled to eastern Anatolia as part of a YTB cultural trip. When asked about their experiences, three participants stated that the tour had helped them become more aware of their national values and identity. Other attendees suggested that the YTB enables them to make stronger connections with their past and ancestors, and even referred to the importance of such opportunities for political lobbying: ‘We know that one of the key purposes of such programmes is to foster unity within the Turkish community in Europe. We need to be organized and get acquainted with each other in order to do good things for the future’ (YTB, 2023b).

Yet as demonstrated by the 2013 Gezi Park and 2021 Bogazici University protests that unfolded within and beyond Turkey’s borders, many young individuals in the diaspora also oppose the AKP’s authoritarian and Islamist policies, although this community is much smaller in comparison to critical Chinese diaspora youth. Drawing from the examples of Turkey and China, scholars have found that intensified domestic repression indeed leads to a subsequent increase in transnational repression (Dukalskis et al., 2023). A Freedom House report has detailed the mechanisms, techniques, and practices of transnational repression used by the Turkish government to silence, intimidate, and prosecute those whom the AKP deems undesirable (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021). However, transnational repression practices ‘seem to be far less widespread in the context of second-generation diasporans. Here, an exclusion by omission appears to be the most prevalent tactic for those who are deemed either undesirable or unworthy of being included’ (Wackenhut and Orjuela, 2023, p. 153). As Wackenhut and Orjuela argue, this has largely to do with post-migrant generations’ relatively more secure position as holders of another passport or citizenship.

7. Conclusion

Similar to other countries, such as Israel, Morocco, and Vietnam, China and Turkey have increasingly sought to tap into their diaspora youth potential in recent years. Both have organized a wide range of programmes sharing three common themes: (1) national identity; (2) language, culture, and education; and (3) leadership and empowerment. China and Turkey seek to reinforce national interests, promote themselves as great powers, and maintain their presence abroad constant by contributing to the creation and mobilization of loyal diaspora youth. They have also used transnational repression tactics to monitor and punish young dissidents as certain segments of the diasporic youth community remain critical of homeland interests. However, the limits of diaspora youth diplomacy depend on how experienced, institutionalized, and financially capable home states are. Young diasporans’ potential receptivity to outreach efforts in connection with their feelings of discrimination in countries of settlement and host state reactions to diaspora diplomacy efforts also matter as some host states can be more tolerant and lenient than others, as the previous section reveals (Arkilic, 2022a).

Diaspora youth policies originating from Beijing and Ankara are crucial for a broader understanding of state-to-state relations in the context of foreign policy and state sovereignty. As discussed in this article, many countries across the world have become increasingly concerned with China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth diplomacy efforts and interpreted them as a security threat and an intervention into domestic affairs. For example, critics of Chinese diaspora diplomacy, such as Wong warn that these efforts ‘adversely affect the healthy functioning of democratic political systems while further undermining the liberties of heterogenous diaspora communities’ (Wong, 2022).

As Ho and McConnell conclude, diaspora diplomacy will continue to attract ample scholarly and policy attention as it ‘brings “multiple worlds” together through scale-spanning assemblages that complicate the territorial assumptions of diplomacy’ (Ho and McConnell, 2022). This article is one of the first attempts to compare and contrast diaspora youth diplomacy efforts. Future research detailing how young diasporans experience and perceive such outreach would provide a fresh perspective and help scholars better contextualize and comprehend comparative diaspora youth diplomacy attempts in a post-pandemic and increasingly authoritarian world. Zhang’s examination of the Pacific Island-based Chinese diaspora’s perceptions of China’s diaspora diplomacy efforts is a welcome addition to the literature in this regard (Zhang, 2022), however we need studies that specifically look at the perceptions of diaspora youth in a comparative setting. Another fruitful avenue for future research would be a comparison of democratic and authoritarian countries’ diaspora youth diplomacy endeavours to identify how they converge or differ in terms of goals, strategies, and impact.

Disclaimer

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Political Science Association Conference, September 30–October 3, 2021 (Online); the International Studies Association Conference, April 6–9, 2021 (Online); and Victoria University of Wellington Political Science and International Relations Programme Research Seminar, July 7, 2021. The authors are grateful for valuable comments received from Duncan Campbell, Matt Castle, Catherine Churchman, Quaid Forbes, Jonathan Grossman, Zak Kettle, Kate McMillan, Harris Mylonas, Manjeet Pardesi, Gerasimos Tsourapas, and Jason Young. Ayca Arkilic thanks the ERASMUS + programme of the European Commission, and the support provided by the Jean Monnet Module ‘NECOTE - New Challenges and Opportunities in a Transforming Europe’ (Project ID 101126961).

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Ayca Arkilic thanks the European Commission within the framework of the ERASMUS+ programme, Jean Monnet Module ‘NECOTE - New Challenges and Opportunities in a Transforming Europe’ (Project ID 101126961) for supporting the project. https://www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/about-eacea/visual-identity/visual-identity-programming-period-2021-2027/european-flag-emblem-and-multilingual-disclaimer_en

Notes on contributors

Ayca Arkilic

Ayca Arkilic is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She is the author of Diaspora Diplomacy: The Politics of Turkish Emigration to Europe (Manchester University Press, 2022) and the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Turkey’s Diasporas (forthcoming in August 2024). She serves as associate editor of Diaspora Affairs. She received her PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. In 2013 and 2014, she was a visiting scholar at Sciences-Po Paris, the WZB Berlin Social Science Research Center, and the University of Oxford. In Spring 2024, she was a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

James Jiann Hua To

James Jiann Hua To is Independent Researcher and National Secretary of the New Zealand Chinese Association. He has completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Canterbury. He is the author of Qiaowu: Extra-Territorial Policies for the Overseas Chinese (Brill, 2014). Dr James To has an academic background in Asian languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese), political science, and commerce. He has lectured in Northeast Asian foreign policy.