Commentary: China, Turkey can ensure sound development of strategic ties

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ongoing visit to Beijing shows again that the two countries are willing to and capable of keeping their friendship and strategic ties on the right track.

In separate talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during his two-day state visit, Erdogan agreed to cooperate with China on anti-terrorism, law enforcement, security, and other areas, without evading sensitive issues.

The two countries also see eye to eye on counter-terrorism as both of them have suffered from the "three evil forces" of terrorism, extremism and separatism.

Erdogan's visit came days after some Turkish news media, driven by ulterior motives, made quite irresponsible and baseless reports on so-called interference by Chinese authorities in Ramadan and other religious activities in China, resulting in violence against the Chinese embassy and tourists in Turkey.

As Erdogan put it, Turkey will boost cooperation with China and not allow its strategic cooperation with China to be affected by ill-minded forces.

In fact, as two emerging economies, China and Turkey enjoy huge cooperation potential in a broader domain.

First, the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road as proposed by China, on both of which Turkey is an important junction, will significantly enhance Sino-Turkish ties and cooperation.

China now stands ready to link the Belt and Road initiatives with Turkey's development strategy in pursuit of common prosperity.

Second, Sino-Turkish pragmatic cooperation has undergone fast and steady development, as China has become Turkey's second largest trading partner and the high-speed railway built by Chinese company linking the capital city Ankara and the most populous city Istanbul has reduced one-way time consumption from 10 hours to less than four hours.

Moreover, both countries have a strong will to cooperate in such new fields as finance, energy, aviation, aerospace and communication.

After China initiated the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Turkey was among the first batch of countries to join as founding members of the multilateral institution designed to finance infrastructure building in Asia.

With Turkey joining the AIIB, both countries are able to carry out wider cooperation in infrastructure.

Besides, Turkey has also applied to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a full member state.

As Xi said when meeting Erdogan, more coordination between the two countries on global economic governance, climate change and other issues will safeguard not only the common interests of the two nations but also those of other developing countries. Endi