On the Misperceptions between the Peoples of Turkey and China

Abstract: Nations’ misperception causes misinterpretations of reciprocal demands, actions; the other side’s expectations, inadequacies and priorities; and may form biases. But scholars, especially those studying international relations, generally attach utmost importance to the bilateral relations of politics, economy, culture and military. Foreign policy analysts and makers often disregard the impact of public opinion. This article tries to analyze the impact of the perceptions between Turkish and Chinese peoples to the relations of both countries. In case of this the main question of this presentation is whether the public’s attitude became a major hinder and heavily influenced the decision-makers or not on the basis of Turkish-Chinese relations. Diplomatic relations between Turkey and China in political and economic field have improved significantly in recent years. But the degree of favorability to people to people exchange is extremely low because of the influential factors, which are mostly stemmed from the issue of ‘Eastern Turkistan’, the thoughts of the past, the trade imbalance and the media’s negative and adverse approach to the issues. In order to solve the low favorability problem, both sides not only should depend on exchange and dialogue institutionally, but also rely on social and cultural interactionsinformally to enhance the mutual understanding accordingly.