Mirantis has found a partner to help it land OpenStack customers in China, the company announced Monday night (U.S. time) at OpenStack Summit in Tokyo.

The company has announced a joint venture with UCloud, an independent cloud provider. Ingeniously, the 50-50 venture is named UMCloud. Its goal, of course, is to steer China's cloud build outs toward OpenStack.

Mirantis already has at least one big-name customer in China: the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. UCloud should offer the company even more reach into the region. The cloud provider was founded by former Tencent executives in 2012, so it's got some pull, and with $160 million raised to date, it's got some resources as well.

That could mean a lot to Mirantis as China, like everybody else, increases its dependence on the cloud. Having a local partner could help Mirantis' cause when dealing with enterprises and government agencies that prefer to work with Chinese companies.