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Become a memberOn Wednesday, local media reported that during a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the Minister of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), Liu Jianchao, suggested that China could be involved in construction of the ‘Zangezur corridor’. Shortly after, all media reports disappeared online, and the Chinese Charge d’Affaires Chen Ming to Armenia refuted the reports.
The Zangezur corridor is an Azerbaijani demand for control of a strip of land through Armenia to link mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan.
On Thursday, ‘China supports Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’, Chen told Armenian state media outlet Armenpress.
Chen additionally refuted an article by the Russian state-run media outlet Sputnik, which claimed that a Chinese official had used the Zangezur corridor narrative during a conference in Baku.
According to Chen, Chinese officials ‘didn’t even touch upon’ that subject at the conference, while calling such media reports attributed to the Chinese officials ‘fake or inaccurate’.
He explained that the conference was dedicated to the One Belt and One Road Initiative and that the Chinese delegation had discussed how they could contribute to expanding the initiative in the South Caucasus.
Digital footprint scrubbed
OC Media’s article on the subject linked to the Sputnik article, but as of 15:34 on 4 April, the article was updated, and Liu’s quotes regarding the Zangezur corridor were deleted.
However, OC Media took screenshots of the original article, in both Azerbaijani and Russian, which had Liu’s comments still available. The original article was also still available on Google search — the entire day of news was deleted from the Wayback machine, however.
Throughout Friday, OC Media tried to reach out to the Chinese embassy in Azerbaijan, but was unable to connect to anyone using the phone contacts listed on the Embassy’s website.
The main report from the Azerbaijani side was published in the pro-government media outlet APA, with additional reports republished in different media outlets, all linking back to APA.
Azerbaijani media also noted that the ruling party, New Azerbaijan, invited the representatives of the Chinese Communist Party to the country. Before that, the two sides signed a memorandum to enhance exchanges and cooperation in November 2024. Chinese President Xi Jinping had met with Aliyev in July 2024 as well.
No Azerbaijani media has commented on the erasure of their articles, nor issued any corrections.
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