Amazon is expanding its cloud empire into China.

On Wednesday, after signing an agreement with the Beijing and Ningxia governments, the American internet giant announced that it will soon offer its Amazon Web Services – online services for building and running large software applications – from data centers in Western China.

But unlike in other parts of the world, Amazon will not operate these computing centers on its own. It will offer its new services through local Chinese data center operators and internet service providers such as ChinaNetCenter and SINNET.

This the most practical way, it seems, that the big American web giants can move their cloud services into China. Microsoft uses a similar arrangement in the country, partnering with a local Chinese outfit, 21Vianet, to provide its Windows Azure and Office 365 cloud services in the region. This means, according to 21Vianet, that the services are subject to Chinese law, not U.S. law.

Amazon declined to discuss its new arrangement in China, but it seems that in partnering with local companies, Amazon can not only satisfy local regulatory and legal requirements, but also avoid having to turn over – under the U.S. Patriot Act – any information uploaded by customers to its Chinese cloud services.

The company's Chinese services will be available to a small group of businesses in early 2014. This will include local versions of EC2, which provides instant access to processing power, and S3, which provides data storage, and it will mean that Amazon's cloud empire will stretch across ten geographical regions around the globe, with data centers already up and running everywhere from North America to Australia to Japan.

Anyone can use any of Amazon's services – no matter where they're located – but many businesses and developers prefer to use services served up from local data centers, not only for legal reasons but for added speed as well.