The great Chinese colossus is waking up, after three years of hibernation due to the pandemic, and Pedro Sánchez affirms that "his voice must be heard" on all fronts of the complex global geostrategic and political scenario. Face to face. “It is a transcendental moment”, highlights the head of the Executive, which thus makes the official trip that he is undertaking to China this morning, invited by President Xi Jinping, of the utmost importance.
The culmination of the visit will be the bilateral meeting that both leaders will hold next Friday in the Great Hall of the People, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The expectation and expectations are maximum in the Moncloa, where they underline that this meeting will transfer "a very clear image of the international leadership of the President of the Government". Already in the final stretch of his current term, Spain will assume the presidency of the EU on July 1st.
There are three main goals for Sánchez on this official visit. The most pressing for the global context is that of the war in Ukraine. The Spanish president will be the first European leader Xi receives after his meeting with Vladimir Putin last week in Moscow. For Sánchez, the Asian giant is "a stabilizing power", for which reason already in his last meeting with Xi -at the G-20 summit in Bali last November- he called on him to be an active part in resolving the conflict. .
Sánchez supports the "just and lasting" peace plan of the Ukrainian president, Voldímir Zelenski, and this was guaranteed during his visit to Kyiv on February 23. And now he wants to know, "in more detail", the "position document" that Xi presented to Putin. Despite the Chinese balancing act between the Russian attacker and the attacked Ukrainian, the Spanish president rejects equidistances. But he sees "points of interest" in Xi's proposal: the absolute rejection of the nuclear threat and the defense of territorial integrity. “It is important to know first-hand what are the meanings behind these points directly from President Xi”, highlights Sánchez.
The President of the Government admitted on some occasion as a possible objective a cessation of Russian aggression against Ukraine before the end of the year, that is, during his rotating European presidency. And he believes that the role that China plays "can be decisive" for the evolution of the war.
In addition to the war, Sánchez will explain to Xi his priorities for the European semester. And he also wants to hear China's expectations. But this trip will also have a marked commercial and economic nature, to relaunch projects that were frozen by the pandemic, with the hook of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. China is today the main supplier of Spain, and in the Government they assume that there is a wide margin to increase exports to the Asian giant.
Sánchez, accompanied by the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, will first attend this Thursday the inaugural session of the Boao Forum – the Asian Davos – on the island of Hainan, the southernmost in China. There he has scheduled appointments with the managing director of the IMF, the Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, and with representatives of Mitsubishi and Astrazeneca, firms that could increase their investments in Spain.
On Friday, already in Beijing, Sánchez will meet with the three highest Chinese authorities: in addition to President Xi, Prime Minister Li Qiang and the President of the People's Assembly, Zhao Leji. But he will also hold meetings with investors and the main tour operators of the huge country, which has just re-authorized the trips of Chinese tourist groups to Spain. Another vein.
