The Trilemma of Turkish Techno-Nationalism

Turkey’s techno-geopolitical trilemma: Choosing between the United States, the European Union, and China

Ankara’s techno-nationalist policies face a geopolitical trilemma. The Turkish social media scene is dominated by American big tech and the US holds a monopoly on the design of the high-end semiconductors used to train and run large language models for AI. Ankara seeks investment from China to renovate its telecommunications networks and energy infrastructure. And at the same time it has to adjust its digital legislation to satisfy the EU’s norms and values. These priorities may prove harder to reconcile under the Trump administration, which has caused havoc in transatlantic relations and put a distance between Washington and Brussels. Brussels regards Trump’s pro­tectionist tariff policies as an assault on global free trade – a conviction largely shared by Beijing. In such a constellation, it might even be possible for China and the EU to pull in the same direction and for­mu­late policies to minimise harm to their respec­tive markets.

The complicated nexus between Washington, Beijing and Brussels creates prob­lems for Turkey’s technology ecosystem, which remains dependent on each of these three poles for different reasons. The real difficulty for Ankara stems from the inter­connected tasks of pushing innovation and maintaining technological sovereignty. While reducing regulation may not guar­­antee innovation (and may even risk re­inforc­ing Turkey’s existing dependencies), tighter regulation could cause trouble with the new US administration, which closely guards American big tech’s interests abroad. While Erdoğan remains optimistic about his relationship with Trump, prevailing geopolitical uncertainties may still create risks for Turkey. Although Turkish tech­nology policy is driven primarily by domes­tic concerns, the larger geopolitical context shapes and limits these choices. Trump’s close ties with US big tech may come to pose problems for Ankara. The AKP gov­ern­ment has grown increasingly sceptical of global corporations over the past decade, and has banned several American platforms in Turkey; these currently include Discord, Roblox, PayPal and Apple Pay.

The first prong of Turkey’s techno-nation­alist trilemma is thus the United States. Although Turkey dedicates substantial funds to domestic research and devel­op­ment under its National Technology Ini­tia­tive, its tech companies are far too small to com­pete against the likes of Google or Meta. The digital sphere is the weakest link in Turkish techno-nationalism, as reflected in Ankara’s growing scepticism over big tech. In 2019, for instance, the Turkish Presidency warned public employees against sharing important information on messaging appli­cations, referring implicitly to the widely popular WhatsApp. In 2021, Ankara took the opportunity offered by a controversy over WhatsApp’s new privacy rules to pub­licise Turkey’s “native and national” alter­native, Turkcell’s BiP – albeit with little success. Web-based social media platforms such as X are even a bigger problem for the Turkish government, since they are central to shaping domestic public opinion. These platforms have been fined by Turkish courts when they fail to carry out legal demands, which usually include some degree of censorship. Other sanctions include band­width limitations imposed by Turkey’s Infor­mation and Communications Tech­nol­ogies Authority (Bilgi Teknolojileri ve İletişim Kurumu). Such practices may come under greater scrutiny now, as the Trump ad­min­istration has already accused other coun­tries of “economic extortion” for fining American tech companies.

Nevertheless, US assistance remains cru­cial for developing Turkey’s “native and national” AI tools (including a future Turk­ish ChatGPT). TÜBİTAK is currently working on a Turkish large language model, al­though its completion is not in sight. In order to carry out major AI projects, Turkey needs to do business with American chip companies such as NVIDIA, since Chinese corporations are not yet able to produce such sophisti­cated chips. Cooperation with Washington is also necessary for Turkey to compete against regional rivals such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose recent ad­vances in the AI field have been boosted by US tech companies. A second option for Turkey is to join the European Union’s collaborative efforts to catch up with China and the United States in the semiconductor sector. While most EU countries remain dependent on global supply chains for their semiconductors, European Chips Act (2023) is designed to change that.

The EU is therefore the second prong of Turkey’s techno-geopolitical trilemma. While European tech companies are less central to Turkish digital life than their American counterparts, Turkey is closely tied to the EU’s technology norms and rules. Legal alignment is necessary for Tur­key to access the European market, which is the most important destination for Turkish exports. Turkey is also part of the European technology ecosystem through EU funding schemes, such as the framework programmes (Horizon Europe) and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions. Although full EU membership remains a distant prospect, Europeanisation remains a central issue in commercial and institutional settings. Tur­key’s embrace of the EU’s General Data Pro­tec­tion Regulation (GDPR) in the formulation of its own Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) is a case in point. Likewise, the Turkish Competition Authority’s (Rekabet Kurumu) draft legislation aiming to regu­late global tech companies operating in Turkey is based largely on the principles of the EU Digital Markets Act.

Other factors, such as Turkey’s authori­tarian political leanings, may limit the prospects for a long-term technology part­nership between Ankara and Brussels. While both Turkey and the EU are con­cerned about the impact of digital disinformation, for instance, Turkey’s clampdown on “untruthful” information often translates into suppression of domestic dissent. The gulf between Turkish and Euro­pean attitudes toward social media was spotlighted by the March 2025 imprisonment of Ekrem İmamoğlu – Istanbul’s popular mayor and the most likely can­­didate to challenge Erdoğan in the next presidential elections. The Turkish gov­ern­ment’s digital censorship practices and the widespread use of surveillance cameras to identify protestors stand in sharp contrast to the ideals of the EU’s tech governance.

This brings us to the third prong of Tur­key’s techno-geopolitical trilemma: China. The past decade of AKP rule has witnessed a growing partnership between China and Turkey, which now extends beyond bilat­eral trade and regular diplomatic exchanges. Turkey joined multiple Chinese-spon­sored initiatives in the 2010s, from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the Asia Infra­structure and Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as expressing its willingness to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Technology is a crucial component of the Sino-Turkish partnership in the twenty-first century. Turkey’s biggest telecommunications operators, Turkcell and Türk Telekom, both have deals with Huawei to build the country’s 5G network infrastructure. Ankara also expects Chinese investment in renew­able energy and possibly nuclear power. In terms of tech governance, the Chinese Communist Party’s almost full control over the internet is a great inspiration for AKP commentators who admire Beijing’s style of technological sovereignty. Employing the “Chinese model” in Turkey would be impos­sible, of course, since the country lacks com­mercially viable “native and national” companies capable of dominating its own digital space. Nevertheless, Ankara is likely to draw on insights from China when in­cor­porating new AI technologies and facial recognition systems into Turkey’s conven­tional security apparatus.

The biggest challenge posed by China is Turkey’s large bilateral trade deficit, which has grown steadily since 2000 to reach US$40 billion by 2023. Given China’s domi­nant role in the global EV and renewable energy markets, Turkey’s trade deficit is likely to grow further – which could even encourage Ankara to follow Washington’s lead on trade protectionism. In 2019, for instance, the Turkish government imposed additional taxes on international mail orders, implicitly targeting China’s e-com­merce giant Alibaba, whose growing sales in Turkey had become a cause for concern. More recently, TikTok has come under scru­tiny in Turkey – albeit for a completely different reason. Hüseyin Yayman, an AKP deputy and spokesperson for the Turkish National Assembly’s Commission on Digital Platforms (TBMM Dijital Mecralar Komisyonu) even referred to TikTok as a “national secu­rity issue” in 2024. Yayman’s complaint did not concern the global debate on the Chi­nese platform’s alleged privacy issues or its ties to the Communist Party. Instead, he took issue with TikTok’s negative impact on the Turkish youth and traditional family values, and called for a nationwide ban. Had such a ban been imposed, it would have been interesting to see how Ankara could reconcile that with its “techno-nation­alistic” narrative. Because unlike the United States and Europe, China has not been a target of the AKP’s domestic political discourse in recent years, nor has it been presented as Turkey’s geopolitical rival.

Outlook and policy recommendations

European policy-makers should keep a keen eye on the development of Turkey’s “techno-nationalism”, as it will have repercussions in both the military and civilian aspects of Turkish-EU relations. Trump’s re-election has shaken up European-American rela­tions and American big tech companies are coming under closer scrutiny in Europe for their gatekeeping status and opaque algo­rithms. Turkey and the EU are pursuing similar efforts to regulate big tech and estab­lish digital sovereignty. Turkish legis­lation on the digital economy (and possibly AI) is heavily influenced by the European ini­tia­tives. Furthermore, Turkey’s scientific talent has strong connections with Euro­pean institutions and EU funding schemes. But while there is ample scope for cooperation with Brussels, it is clear that Ankara’s techno-nationalism is also predicated on the need to control public opinion at home. The most recent example is the Turkish gov­ernment’s attempts to silence opposition accounts on X during the protests fol­lowing the detention of Ekrem İmamoğlu.

In terms of media freedoms, Turkey cites European anxieties over disinformation and fake news in the context of the Ukraine war to justify its own censorship in cyberspace. China’s digital authoritarianism is a model for Turkish officials who dream of creating “native and national” alternatives to global tech platforms on the internet. China also offers affordable tech equipment for Tur­key’s strategic infrastructure, such as its 5G network, which is expected to be operation­al by 2026. How Brussels interprets Ankara’s cosy relations with Beijing will depend on the future trajectory of the EU’s own rela­tions with China. If Brussels and Beijing join forces to counter Washington’s highly disruptive policies under Trump, Turkey may lose its only leverage vis-à-vis China, namely, its easier access to European mar­kets due to its Customs Union with the EU.

Even if no such realignment takes place, Ankara still needs to find the right balance between the United States, China and the Euro­pean Union in its national tech policy. This is will be hard, since global markets are decoupling through export restrictions, tariffs and other sanctions imposed by Washington or Beijing. A zero-sum game – a – “technological cold war” between the United States and China may ultimately force Turkey to choose one over the other. American companies dominate the global market for high-end semiconductors and the Turkish social media scene, while An­ka­ra still needs China as an investor and an affordable technology provider. Mean­while, Europe remains Turkey’s biggest export market and its most significant sci­en­tific research partner. The trilemma, it would appear, is here to stay.