Aliyev in Beijing: Azerbaijan and China Cement Strategic Pact with a Focus on Energy and Trade

When the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) convened its annual summit this year, two South Caucasus countries were noticeably absent from its inner circle. Azerbaijan and Armenia, both aspiring to at least observer status, faced obstacles not from Moscow or Beijing but from the regional rivalry between India and Pakistan.

When Xi Jinping addressed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin this week, his tone carried ambitions that stretched well beyond a Eurasian security bloc. What began in 2001 as a regional club aimed at counterterrorism and border disputes is now being cast by Beijing as nothing less than a vehicle to reshape the global order — with China at its center.

Amid waning U.S. influence and Moscow’s loss of control, a new player is quietly but steadily entering the geopolitics of the South Caucasus — China. Traditionally focused on its immediate neighborhood and global trade arteries, Beijing has in recent years expanded its footprint across the turbulent trio of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. China’s growing presence — spanning trade, infrastructure, diplomacy, and soft power — is having far-reaching implications for Eurasian connectivity, regional equilibrium, and the global order.

The 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan came at a pivotal moment in global geopolitics, highlighting the bloc’s ambitions to reshape the global order while also revealing the significant challenges it faces. The five-member coalition—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—sought to deepen their influence over global financial and governance systems, particularly in response to Western dominance. Despite the summit’s success in laying out a vision for a more multipolar world, the divergent interests of its members and the complexity of its goals make the road ahead uncertain.