About AZERTAC Chinese

AZERTAC Chinese

AZERTAC Chinese is the Chinese-language service of AZERTAC, the Azerbaijan State News Agency — the official news agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, founded on 1 March 1920 by the Government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and headquartered in Baku. AZERTAC releases news on politics, economy, education, science, culture, health, sports and environment in eight languages — Azerbaijani, Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese — and the Chinese edition presents Azerbaijan's official news and Azerbaijan-China relations to Chinese-speaking readers on the agency's website, azertag.az. The service is supported by a physical presence in China: AZERTAC has operated a correspondent office in Beijing since 2011, as part of an international network of bureaus in more than twenty countries, and it cooperates closely with China's Xinhua News Agency and other Chinese media. AZERTAC Chinese is a distinct language service of the agency, separate from its Azerbaijani-language flagship wire and its English and Russian editions.

Founded in 1920: fifty-eight days of independence

AZERTAC's founding is bound up with the short life of the first Azerbaijani republic. The establishment of an Azerbaijan Telegraph Agency was discussed at a session of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic on 3 March 1919, on the report of the council's chairman, Fatali Khan Khoyski; the task passed first to the Minister of Enlightenment, Nasib Bey Usubbayov, and later to the Ministry of Posts and Telegraph, and a draft law and statute were drawn up in the second half of 1919. A draft staff plan and statute were discussed by the government on 2 February 1920 and submitted to parliament, where deputies Agha Eminov and Agha Ashurov argued the necessity of the agency on 23 February. The agency was founded on 1 March 1920, and published its first news in a local newspaper on 2 March. It existed as an independent source of information for only 58 days: on 28 April 1920 the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic lost its independence and Azerbaijan was incorporated into the Soviet system. Scholarly periodisation of AZERTAC divides its history into three phases — the brief founding period of March-April 1920, the long Soviet era, and the period of restored independence from 1991 — a span the agency itself counts proudly, marking its 101st anniversary in March 2021 and its 104th in March 2024.

The Soviet era and restored independence

During the Soviet period AZERTAC functioned under various names as the Azerbaijani component of the Soviet information system, subject to the difficulties and restrictions of Soviet rule, while rising to prominence within the USSR as a hub for receiving and transmitting news for the republics of the South Caucasus; it was the first among the news agencies of the Soviet republics, after Ukrinform, to be equipped with Olivetti computers. When Azerbaijan restored its independence in 1991, the agency developed anew: in 1992 it restored its historical name, AZERTAC, and — after difficult early years of transition to self-support — entered a new stage of development from 1993, building a world news network, appointing representatives in foreign countries and conveying developments in Azerbaijan to the world. In the 44-day war of 2020 the agency played a crucial role in conveying frontline realities to world public opinion. Today it works from a new, world-class headquarters building in Baku equipped with modern information technology, under a chairman of the board — Vugar Aliyev, in post since November 2022 — and describes itself as Azerbaijan's gateway to the global information landscape.

Eight languages and a very large file

The scale of the operation behind the Chinese edition is considerable. AZERTAC's own LinkedIn and institutional descriptions state that, along with official government information, it wires round-the-clock news covering all spheres of life in Azerbaijan — politics, economy, culture, sports, health, environment and others — in Azerbaijani, English, Russian, French, German, Arabic and Chinese, with Spanish making the eighth language of its published output, and it produces video news in five languages, the first news agency in its region to do so. In 2023 alone AZERTAC produced over 190,000 news items, disseminated through its website azertag.az, news bulletins and around 30 social media pages maintained in various languages and profiles; its news, videos and photos are regularly published by international and regional media and by the national agencies with which it collaborates. The Chinese service is the Chinese-language channel of this file — the means by which a share of that very large daily output reaches readers in Chinese.

The Beijing bureau and cooperation with Chinese media

What distinguishes AZERTAC's Chinese operation from a simple translation desk is its presence on the ground in China. Academic study of Azerbaijan-China relations records that AZERTAC has operated a correspondent office in Beijing since 2011, as part of its broader international media network — the agency maintains bureaus and correspondent posts in 21 or more foreign countries. Through the Beijing platform AZERTAC has cultivated substantive partnerships with leading Chinese media institutions, including Xinhua News Agency. The cooperation runs in both directions: AZERTAC material reaches Chinese audiences directly, as when China's CGTN television channel broadcast an extensive AZERTAC report on the Middle Corridor — the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route linking China and Southeast Asia with Europe through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye — in its Global South Voices project; and AZERTAC's chairman, Vugar Aliyev, joined Azerbaijan's official delegation to Beijing for the signing of a memorandum on radio and television broadcasting cooperation with China's National Radio and Television Administration. Formal diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and China date from 2 April 1992, with Azerbaijan's embassy in Beijing operating from 3 September 1993, and the relationship was raised to a formal strategic partnership in 2024, followed by President Ilham Aliyev's state visit to China in 2025 — developments the Chinese service exists to report to Chinese readers from the Azerbaijani side.

AZERTAC in the world of news agencies

The Chinese service is produced by an agency with an unusual degree of institutional standing among its peers. AZERTAC has signed cooperation agreements with about 50 leading news agencies and conducts information exchanges with about 150 agencies, closely cooperating with the Associated Press, Reuters, the Press Association and DPA among others. It is an active member of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) and the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA), held the presidency of both the News Agencies World Congress and OANA for the 2016-2019 term, and was elected Secretary-General of the Alliance of Turkic News Agencies (ATNA) at that alliance's first general assembly in Istanbul. Memoranda with the Polish Press Agency (2012), Israel's Tazpit Press Service (2019) and Cuba's Prensa Latina (2019) illustrate the breadth of its exchange network. For the Chinese edition, membership of OANA — the Asia-Pacific agency organisation in which Xinhua is also a leading member — provides an institutional setting in which Azerbaijani and Chinese agency journalism meet.

Content and audience

The Chinese edition carries AZERTAC's coverage of Azerbaijani politics, economy, education, science, culture, health, sports and environment, with Azerbaijan-China relations a natural focus: presidential visits, Belt and Road and Middle Corridor transport cooperation, energy and trade, and cultural exchange. Scholarly work on Azerbaijani culture's emergence in China notes that Azerbaijan has actively pursued media outreach in China across traditional and digital platforms to promote awareness of its political developments, economic priorities, cultural heritage and societal values, with AZERTAC's Beijing presence a key component of that effort. The audience is Chinese-speaking readers in China and worldwide who follow the South Caucasus — officials, businesses, media and the interested public — for whom the service offers Azerbaijan's official account of itself in their own language, produced by an agency that has reported Azerbaijan, under one system or another, since 1920.

The agency in the 2020s

AZERTAC entered its second century in a period of visible expansion. Marking its 104th anniversary on 1 March 2024, the agency described itself as the primary news source of the country, chronicling Azerbaijan's journey since 1920 and striving to enhance its operations from its new, world-class Baku headquarters, built with the support of President Ilham Aliyev and equipped with the most modern information technologies. Its election as Secretary-General of the Alliance of Turkic News Agencies and its reporting partnerships across Asia, Europe and Latin America belong to the same period. The Chinese service, carried in that anniversary period as one of the agency's eight publishing languages and backed by the Beijing bureau and the Xinhua partnership, is the form in which this expanded agency addresses Chinese-speaking audiences.

Access

AZERTAC Chinese is published on the agency's website at azertag.az, alongside its Azerbaijani, Russian, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic editions, and through the agency's multilingual social media presence. From its Baku headquarters and its bureau network in more than twenty countries — including the Beijing office opened in 2011 — the agency founded on 1 March 1920 continues to file Azerbaijan's news in eight languages, with the Chinese service carrying that news to the Chinese-speaking world.