After Turkey decided in 2006 to procure a long-range air and anti-missile defense system known as T-Loramids, a long and a hot contest pitched the US PAC-3 Patriot, Russian S-400, French/Italian SAMP/T and Chinese HQ-9 models. Raytheon-Lockheed Martin of the US and European Eurosam companies made particular efforts to win Ankara’s favor. While everyone was expecting one of these two companies to win the contract, in September 2013 a bombshell hit the agenda when Turkey decided on China’s state-owned Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp (CPMIEC), which was on the US sanctions list on charges of violating the embargo on Iran. The contract was awarded for the FD-2000 model, the export derivative of HQ-9 system manufactured by the company.

As not much attention is paid to transparency and accountability in Turkey’s weapons procurements, the public did not fully learn the reasons for the decision to go with the Chinese bid.

The public was able to learn a little about the background of the decision thanks to columnists close to the government. According to some columnists, the decision was based purely on CPMIEC’s low price bid and its unconditional agreement with Turkey’s contractual conditions. Columnists claimed that the Chinese company overcame the competition with its offer of 50% joint production and technology transfer.

According to some other writers, political motives — not just economic and technology-transfer ones — played a part. For example, economics writer Suleyman Yasar of the pro-government daily Sabah said the world’s economic and political focus was shifting to Asia. As Turkey is rapidly progressing toward becoming a global actor, it wanted to shape its security policy in line with economic opportunities.