China Pakistan Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD : 20 july 2025 – President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev has spoke highly about bilateral relations and cooperation with China in his opening interaction with journalist at 3rd Shusha Global Forum held in Khankendi of Karabakh region.
Chief Correspondent of the Baku branch of Xinhua News Agency, Mrs. Zhong Zhong asked him ;
Mr. President, obviously, after your visit to China, the exchanges between our countries have become more frequent, one might even say very intense. Almost every day we can hear news about new cooperation opportunities between our countries. Therefore, my question is this: how would you assess the current relations between Azerbaijan and China? What are the prospects for our cooperation? Regarding the Great Return to Karabakh, in which areas can Chinese companies participate? Thank you very much.
President Ilham Aliyev replied ; I do appreciate the level of cooperation between our countries. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with Chairman Mr. Xi Jinping on several occasions. We met both this year, during my state visit, and last year on the sidelines of the international summit, and we adopted and signed two important documents. Last year, it was the Declaration on Strategic Partnership, this year it was the Declaration on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. So it is one of the highest forms of interstate relations, and we are very pleased that we have reached such a level of mutual trust with the People’s Republic of China.
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I should also say that literally a few days ago, the visa regime was completely abolished for citizens of Azerbaijan who want to visit China with regular passports. And we, in turn, abolished the visa regime for Chinese citizens a year ago. I think that this will contribute to the fact that contacts between our people, students and business people will become more frequent.
We have always supported and continue to support each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Azerbaijan has always openly stated that it supports the position of the People’s Republic of China on Taiwan and on other issues. Our position, the One China policy, is well known to both the Chinese leadership and the Chinese people.
Of course, we have major plans to increase the volume of trade. And there is tremendous potential for this. Container trains are already traveling from many cities of China to Azerbaijan and through Azerbaijan to the West.
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Their number is growing year after year, by dozens of percent. I think this will increase many times in the near future. From the very beginning, we supported Chairman Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road initiative and, for our part, prepared the corresponding transport and logistics infrastructure on our territory.
Chinese companies are heavily involved as contractors in the implementation of solar power plant projects. Solar panels purchased by investor companies are made in China. And recently, we have also begun to cooperate with Chinese companies in the production of green energy – solar and wind. Relevant agreements have already been signed, and I think that this will also be a good addition to our mutually beneficial cooperation.
So the relations are very strong. A very active political dialogue is being conducted both at the level of heads of state and at the level of ministers. We also have very close interactions with various regions of China. We already have several Azerbaijani trading houses operating in China. So we see great prospects in this area.
As for transport and logistical projects, as I have already mentioned, new railway arteries, including those financed by the People’s Republic of China in the Central Asian region, will help increase cargo traffic through the Caspian to Azerbaijan, and then along international routes. So, thank you for your question. You are welcome!
