On April 23, 2026, the Master Program in Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at NCCU hosted a seminar titled "Redefining the Great Game in Central Asia: Narratives and Politics of Türkiye." The event drew students and faculty from across NCCU's departments. The speaker, Müge Yüce, Associate Professor at Atatürk University and currently a visiting scholar at NCCU under a Taiwan MoFA scholarship, delivered a historically grounded overview of Turkish foreign policy toward Central Asia — from Türkiye's role as a NATO ally during the Cold War to its present-day multi-vector diplomacy balancing relations with the West, Russia, and China. The lecture traced key turning points in Türkiye's engagement with the region, highlighting that Türkiye was the first country to recognize the independence of the Central Asian states after the Soviet collapse and provided a significant share of development aid to the region in the early 1990s. Yüce examined how pan-Turkic and cultural narratives have been used as diplomatic tools, while noting that economic and strategic realities often diverge from official rhetoric. Topics such as the Middle Corridor project, the Organization of Turkic States, and the Turkic World Vision 2040 provided a concrete picture of Türkiye's current regional ambitions alongside the structural constraints it faces — including limited trade ties with Central Asia and economic asymmetry with China. The seminar closed with an engaged question-and-answer session, followed by an opportunity for students to speak with Yüce individually — a fitting end to an afternoon of critical exchange on one of Central Asia's most complex bilateral relationships.
