On matters of trade and ambition, Turkey and China are kindred spirits. A visit to Turkey this week by China's vice president symbolized the growth of an alliance between two rising powers with booming economies — but they differ sharply over how to end the bloodshed in Syria.

Xi Jinping presided over the signing of deals worth billions of dollars and delivered messages of harmony in Ankara, and then in Istanbul on Wednesday. Both sides sought, at least publicly, to downplay contentious issues, which also include a Chinese crackdown on the minority Uighurs, who are ethnically related to Turks.

"Both countries are quickly rising stars. One of them is a global power. The other is a regional power," said Murat Bilhan, a former Turkish ambassador and chairman of the foreign policy platform at Istanbul Kultur University. "This, of course, gives them some kind of look toward each other and they need to cooperate."

There are challenges.

Trade between Turkey and China soared over the past decade to $24 billion a year, though Chinese exports account for most of it. Turkish officials want to address this imbalance by securing more Chinese investment and tourism, as well as joint ventures in Turkey or other locations, such as Africa.

"This is a very huge problem between Turkey and China," said Selcuk Colakoglu, head of Asia-Pacific studies at USAK, a research center based in Ankara.

Zafer Caglayan, the Turkish economy minister, alluded to the trade imbalance at a Turkish-Chinese business forum in Istanbul when he said, in a pointed joke, that China was the recipient of "unrequited love" from Turkey. At the same time, the economic powerhouses have ambitious plans to increase trade fourfold by the end of the decade.

Prior to the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey stepped up efforts to develop alliances with regional neighbors, including authoritarian regimes such as Libya and Syria. But Turkey has aligned closely with the West in calling for democratic change, and says Syrian President Bashar Assad should stop military assaults on the opposition and quit.

China, which carried out a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989, has refused to condemn Syria over the violence. Along with Russia, China vetoed two U.N. Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning Syria's military campaign against the opposition, though it later said it supported the league's plans.

Colakoglu said Turkey, a democracy with its own shortcomings, had settled on a policy of advocating "open and free elections," while China sees the Syrian case as "a kind of destabilization" in which the West is maneuvering for influence.

In 2009, violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese left nearly 200 dead in the worst riots in China's far west in more than a decade. Turkey is home to a large Uighur community, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had described China's use of overwhelming force against anti-government protesters as "almost genocide."

Tension eased after China invited Turkish businesses to invest in the Xinjiang region, where most of China's Uighurs live, and Chinese airlines started flights last year that link Istanbul to Beijing and Shanghai with stopovers in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi.
This week, officials announced deals worth $1.4 billion (€1.05 billion) between companies from the two countries as well as a three-year currency swap deal worth $1.6 billion (€1.2 billion) to enable bilateral trade in local currencies.

Altay Atli, coordinator of the Asian Studies Center at Bogazici University in Istanbul, said disputes over Syria and the Uighurs were unlikely to disrupt the pragmatic, economy-oriented relationship between China and Turkey. They were once linked by the Silk Road, the ancient trade network between Asia and Europe. The two countries stood on opposite sides in the Cold War and began to open up to investment at around the same time in the 1980s.

"Turkey wants to be a more assertive player in the region and in the world," Atli said. "This requires close relations with China. For China, on the other hand, Turkey is more important than ever because of China's growing interest in the Middle East."

Atli said he believes Vice President Xi wanted to "set his foot on the stage" in the energy-rich region before becoming, as expected, president of China next year.