The 2015 deal that handed a 99-year lease of Darwin Port to a Chinese firm was not a simple commercial transaction. On the contrary, it was a stark strategic warning. For those in Canberra willing to look, the playbook had already been run, albeit on a smaller stage. Indeed, Türkiye’s coercive experiments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East serve as the beta version of a grander strategy. China is now deploying this same strategy across the Indo-Pacific.
Consequently, understanding Ankara’s methods is not an academic exercise. It is, in fact, the essential preparation for grasping Beijing’s intentions before they manifest closer to home. This is the dragon’s Turkish rehearsal, and the curtain has already risen.
Cartographic aggression: From Blue Homeland to Nine-Dash Line
In 2019, Ankara executed a masterclass in legalistic coercion. It did so by signing a maritime memorandum with Libya. This agreement brazenly ignored the sovereign rights of Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt. In effect, it carved up the Eastern Mediterranean as if the sea were a blank map. Although Libyan courts eventually annulled the deal and the EU rejected it, the memorandum still achieved its primary purpose. Specifically, it manufactured leverage over critical energy routes and established a new, disruptive baseline for regional diplomacy.
This move is the cornerstone of the Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. This concept treats the surrounding seas not as shared commons but as integral extensions of the Turkish homeland. Under this doctrine, occupied Northern Cyprus becomes a strategic asset. It is an unsinkable aircraft carrier that projects drone capabilities, signals intelligence, and military garrisons. As a result, it exerts pressure on Greece, Israel, and European interests.
Beijing’s parallel is just as direct and ambitious. The infamous Nine-Dash Line is the cartographic twin of Mavi Vatan. It is a sweeping claim that redraws the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. For instance, where Türkiye uses Northern Cyprus as a forward base, China constructs artificial islands. It transforms submerged reefs into militarised outposts, complete with runways and missile batteries. Ultimately, both strategies are about the same thing: using maps to justify military presence. They turn disputed waters into front lines of power projection. Furthermore, these cartographic claims are tied to wider economic designs, from Türkiye’s Middle Corridor to China’s Maritime Silk Road. In both cases, control of sea lanes becomes an instrument of state power.
Ports and corridors: The instruments of economic coercion
The story of ports and corridors follows an identical script. In 2015, for example, a Chinese consortium acquired a controlling stake in Kumport, Istanbul’s third-largest container terminal. This move secured a strategic foothold in a NATO country. That very same year, the Chinese firm Landbridge secured the Darwin Port lease. This action triggered a strategic crisis for Canberra that continues to resonate. These are not isolated commercial ventures; rather, they are calculated acquisitions designed to secure access and exert influence.
Ankara promotes its Middle Corridor as a vital trade artery connecting Asia to Europe. It bypasses both Russia and the Suez Canal and boasts of growing cargo volumes. Similarly, Beijing does precisely the same with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a colossal project that weaves a web of economic dependency across continents. For a nation like India, the effect is a strategic pincer. Two vast economic corridors, one backed by China and the other supported by Türkiye, now converge on Pakistan.
This synergy is most tangible in South Asia. Beijing and Islamabad have long been partners through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This project has deepened Pakistan’s economic reliance on China. Ankara now complements this by supplying naval corvettes, deepening defence cooperation, and providing diplomatic cover on the Kashmir issue. For New Delhi, this creates a dual squeeze. It faces Chinese pressure from the east and Turkish-backed leverage from the west. For Pakistan, however, this supposed empowerment is profound exposure. It is now a client state—a testing ground for Chinese debt-trap diplomacy and Turkish military hardware.
For Australia, the lesson from Darwin is immediate. The port was not a unique event but part of this broader pattern. Canberra’s challenge is therefore not only local but systemic, as ports become choke points in an emerging contest for economic sovereignty.
Proxies and drones: The art of asymmetric warfare
The parallels are even clearer in the grey zone of asymmetric conflict. Recent U.S. sanctions have exposed how Turkish-based networks have served as conduits for funds to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Ankara launches no rockets itself, but it facilitates the means for others to do so. This is a mirror image of China’s maritime militia, a fleet of “fishing boats” that functions as an irregular navy, harassing the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea. Both tactics rely on deniable assets to achieve strategic goals without resorting to open warfare.
The drone has become the signature tool of this new era. Turkish TB2 drones, ironically adapted from Israeli designs, reshaped battlefields from Ukraine to Africa. Their success demonstrated that cheap, “good-enough” systems, when deployed in swarms, can overwhelm expensive, conventional defences. Exporting these drones has become a powerful instrument of Turkish foreign policy, creating political leverage and logistical dependency in client states.
China’s Wing Loong drone, a clone of the American Predator, is sold for a fraction of the cost and has been supplied to Pakistan and other BRI partners. In both cases, the sale of drones is not merely a defence transaction. It is a tool of subjugation, locking buyers into a cycle of dependence for training, maintenance, and upgrades, thereby turning a simple purchase into long-term political influence. This strategy is a core component of the dragon’s Turkish rehearsal.
This projection of power is reinforced by strategic deterrence. Türkiye’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, built by Russia’s Rosatom, locks Ankara into a dependency on Moscow while providing dual-use potential. Its Tayfun ballistic missile, with a range covering Greece and Israel, signals that its cartographic claims are backed by credible threats. Similarly, China’s DF-series of anti-ship missiles underpins its coercive posture in the Pacific. The message is clear: maps and ports are ultimately reinforced by hard power.
The lessons for the Indo-Pacific
For Australia and other regional powers, the lesson is immediate and unavoidable. Maps are weapons. Ports are leverage. Proxies are instruments of statecraft. Drones are tools of attrition. Coercion does not require conquest; it is achieved through the slow, methodical accumulation of economic and asymmetric advantages. The Red Sea crisis, where Houthi attacks disrupted global trade, showed how a narrow strait can be turned into a chokepoint. Beijing could replicate this playbook in the Strait of Malacca, through which 80% of its energy imports pass, with devastating effect.
Small states at strategic crossroads, like Singapore, are acutely vulnerable. With a large Chinese diaspora and a dependence on maritime trade, Singapore embodies the dual vulnerability Beijing exploits: seas as battlegrounds and societies as soft bases for influence operations.
The study of Ankara’s actions is therefore not about Türkiye itself, but about understanding the template. The dragon’s Turkish rehearsal provides a clear preview of the methods China will use to assert its dominance. The mirror works both ways: Türkiye offers the rehearsal for China, and China provides the scale that explains Türkiye’s ambition. Together, they have authored a single playbook, tested in the Mediterranean and now deployed across the Indo-Pacific, where blue maps and open waters have become the 21st-century’s decisive battlegrounds.