In the AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series, experts from AREA Ruhr are looking forward to meeting up with authors of newly released academic books that deal with East Asia from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. At AREA Ruhr, we are curious about getting insights into recently published research results and discussing the “research journey” that authors have been engaged in.
All events are conducted online via Zoom and are open to be joined after registration. Following the exchange between the invited author and an AREA host, the audience is encouraged to join the discussion.
The tenth episode of the AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series will be conducted in July 2026. Please find information on the event below.
22 Jul 2026, 6 PM CEST
“China-Türkiye Relations: Unravelling the Puzzle”
by Xiaoli Guo (IN-EAST, University of Duisburg-Essen)
Host: Nele Noesselt (AREA Ruhr)
Further information & registration
About the author
Dr Xiaoli Guo is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the Australian National University. Her research focuses on China’s foreign policy, role theory, and coalition-building in the Indo-Pacific. Her co-authored article received the 2025 Boyer Prize from the Australian Journal of International Affairs.
About the Book
The book questions event-driven interpretations that produce episodic judgements about China-Türkiye relations. It argues that isolated or highly salient developments should not be treated as sufficient evidence of the trajectory of the relationship as a whole. By examining political, economic, and military relations over time, the book finds that several factors commonly treated as underlying causes of the relationship’s trajectory, including the Uyghur issue, persistent trade imbalances in the economic relationship, and divergent strategic priorities, are causally significant but operate chiefly as enduring background conditions. Their politically consequential effects are neither automatic, continuous, nor uniform, but depend on particular domestic, bilateral, economic, or diplomatic triggers that activate or amplify them. This helps explain why cooperation, stagnation, friction, and strategic signalling can coexist, and why the relationship cannot be reduced to simple narratives of rapprochement, estrangement, alignment, or confrontation.
Please register through the following link to receive access to the online Book Talk:
https://uni-due.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/sU7lDy9zS4u9XtLnmo72xQ