This article examines how Chinese and Azerbaijani mainstream media construct the political meaning of China–Azerbaijan relations during a period of rapid diplomatic upgrading. The study combines qualitative content analysis with comparative framing analysis of forty media reports and official statements published between 2022 and 2025. The analysis focuses on four recurring fields of representation: the Belt and Road Initiative and the Middle Corridor, trade and infrastructure narratives, educational and cultural exchange, and Azerbaijan’s engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The findings show that Chinese and Azerbaijani outlets do not merely repeat the same diplomatic vocabulary. Chinese media usually situate Azerbaijan within Eurasian connectivity and China’s wider development diplomacy, while Azerbaijani media foreground national benefit, sovereignty recognition, transit potential and foreign-policy diversification. The article argues that the overlap between these two readings helps normalize the language of strategic partnership and turns economic data, summit diplomacy and cultural exchange into evidence of a broader political relationship.