Erdogan's emotional stop in Xinjiang followed Xi Jinping's visit to Turkey, an occasion for the then vice-president of China to sign for $4.3 billion in Sino-Turkish business deals.

The potential for the development of Sino-Turkish trade is evident, and the recent decision by Ankara favoring a Japanese-French consortium to build a second nuclear plant while China was a bidder a $22 billion contract does not question the shared long-term commitment to deepen the Sino-Turkish connection.

In 2012, bilateral trade was $19 billion and it will reach $100 billion before 2020 with more cooperation in the construction of infrastructure, agriculture, tourism, as well as possible business collaboration in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

If the development of the Sino-Turkish relations can be interpreted as another example of impactive South-South relations within an increasingly multipolar world, it reveals its full significance in a Eurasian geopolitical context.

To maintain overall Eurasian stability, it is vital that a reemerging China, the global Middle Country, and a rising Turkey, the transcontinental pivot at the intersection of the Muslim world, Europe and Russia, do not collide. Sino-Turkish strategic synergy can be also a generator of growth and security on the "world continent".

In this perspective, Ankara becoming a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this year is a constructive step. As a NATO member and a European Union candidate country, Turkey acts not only as a bridge between the EU and the SCO, but also between NATO and the SCO.

In The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski reflected on the relations between the United States and Eurasia. He argued that if a chaotic Eurasia constitutes a threat to American interests, Washington has to make sure that none of the Eurasian players dominates the world continent or the US would risk becoming peripheral.

In other words, the US needs to be involved in Eurasian affairs to create an order congenial with its interests, but on "the grand chessboard" it behaves in accordance with the spirit of the old doctrine of divide and rule.

However, the patient construction of a more cohesive Eurasia, bringing closer the European Union, the Turkic sphere, Russia and China, should not be perceived as a strategy to marginalize or diminish US power, but as a source of global security and a guarantee of a better balance between the New World and Eurasia.

The author is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at the China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, Beijing and Accra, and founder of the Euro-China Forum.

(China Daily 09/05/2013 page8)