Insight Turkey, one of the leading academic journals in Turkey and the region, in its first issue for 2018 brings to its readers valuable articles that focus mainly on China’s foreign policy. “Persistent Rise of China: Global Challenges and Regional Dynamics” assesses China’s growing influence in international and regional politics and experts in this field provide different perspectives regarding China’s global challenges and the regional dynamics.

In the parliamentary elections of July 22, 2007, AKP (Justice and Development Party) won 47% of the votes, obtaining a very strong mandate to take issue with Turkey’s outstanding problems. In the predominantly Kurdish east and southeast region, the AKP doubled its vote from 26% to 53%. The AKP seemed to have persuaded the Kurds thanks to the party’s earlier moves to solve the Kurdish problem by granting more rights and freedoms as well as jobs and economic prosperity. Having started the negotiation process with the EU and obtaining such a strong mandate from the Kurdish voters, why did the AKP turn its back to the Kurdish issue?  This can be explained with reference to three groups of factors working at the domestic, the EU and international levels.

The profound transformation in the priorities of Turkey’s foreign policy and macroeconomic strategy should be read in view of tectonic shifts in the world system...