BAKU — Azerbaijan’s president told China’s foreign minister that his country has always supported the “One China” policy, and heard in return that Beijing has always backed Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, according to the Azerbaijani presidency’s account of a meeting on Wednesday. Each side got a sovereignty pledge, and a trade route came attached.
Wang Yi, a member of the Communist Party of China’s Political Bureau, is in Baku as President Xi Jinping’s special representative to the Baku CICA summit, which China’s foreign ministry said takes place Thursday. President Ilham Aliyev received him on the eve of it.
Aliyev recalled his state visit to China, his meetings with Xi and the Joint Statement on Strategic Partnership adopted there, which he said lifted Azerbaijan-China relations to a new level. Wang Yi called China a “reliable and long-term partner” and said the development he had seen in Baku left a deep impression.
The economics came next. Aliyev said Azerbaijan was among the first countries to support the Belt and Road Initiative and that the Middle Corridor, the trans-Caspian trade route between Asia and Europe, offered broad room for cooperation. Wang Yi stressed Azerbaijan’s role along it. Aliyev also said trade was growing and pointed to Chinese companies’ involvement in investment projects in Azerbaijan. The readout names no company, project or figure.
Beijing has worded the relationship differently. In its readout of Wang Yi’s May 26 meeting in New York with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, the Chinese foreign ministry said ties had been elevated to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” and reported that Bayramov said Azerbaijan “firmly supports China on issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.” The Azerbaijani account of Wednesday’s meeting uses “strategic partnership” and does not mention Xinjiang. Neither account explains the gap.
The sides also discussed renewable energy and what the presidency called “joint efforts to combat separatism, extremism and radicalism,” terms it does not define.
The Chinese foreign ministry announced on October 12 that the trip runs from October 14 to 20 and also takes Wang Yi to Croatia, Montenegro and Bulgaria. Beijing’s own account of the Baku meeting had not appeared when this was written, so whether it repeats the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang wording is not yet known.
