Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the president of Azerbaijan on foreign affairs, was in Beijing in the past few days. There is no official message about that, the source of the information is Hajiyev’s post on the X (former Twitter) social network, according to which he held talks with the Deputy Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, the Deputy Head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the President of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The Azerbaijani press transmits partial details from Hajiyev’s interview to the China Global Television Network. According to that, the main goal of Hajiyev’s Beijing business trip is to “explore” the possibility of joining the China-Kazakhstan trade and economic agreement recently concluded.
He very transparently says that the problem has already been discussed with the Kazakh side, Azerbaijan “would like the Chinese partners to participate as well” – from which it is understood that Baku seeks to “fit” in the China-EU communication project not so much as a transit provider, but Participant. Hajiyev does not privatize what potential Azerbaijan has. It can be assumed that Baku is offering Beijing access to Chinese technology in exchange for transit. Customs revenue is one thing, the opportunity to get Chinese technology in return is quite another. In this case, we can refer primarily to technologies of military-industrial significance.
What results Hajiev achieved is very difficult to say. The modernization of the technological saturation of Azerbaijan’s military potential should be above the purely bilateral relations between Beijing and Baku. But that discussions have started or are going on seems to be a reality. Two important circumstances remain open. Will China’s trade with Europe pass through Turkey or Georgian ports? And in that case, what position will Russia take? The Azerbaijani commentator believes that “Russia will not complicate relations with China regarding the full operation of the Middle Corridor, and will not dare to take a step against Turkey.”
But it is only an assumption, and it is built on the assumption that Russia is waging a heavy war in Ukraine and “will not create a new enemy” in the face of China and Turkey. In that case, why does Russia also import Abkhazia from the sea? Doesn’t that limit Turkey’s influence? And if China is really modernizing the port of Anaklia, then isn’t the new Russian naval base in Abkhazia being created to perform “control-transit” functions? Azerbaijan can consider that it has “given its maximum” to Russia: land transit with Iran. But what is its strategic importance if China is connected to the European Union by a horizontal line?
Perhaps the most important thing for Armenia is that Hajiyev did not talk with China about the “middle corridor” route to the south, through Syunik. At least, he did not say anything about it publicly, judging by the reports of the Azerbaijani press. Has China “lost” interest in that route, or is Turkey generally not considered a “hub” of China-EU trade? It is noteworthy that in 2022 Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference in September, Azerbaijan resorted to border aggression. The absence of Armenia was due to this or only this? Why do Armenian-Chinese relations remain at a low level?
