The great Chinese colossus is coming out, after three years of hibernation due to the pandemic, and Pedro Sánchez says that “its voice must be heard” on all fronts of the complex global geostrategic and political scenario. face to face “It’s a momentous moment”, emphasizes the head of the Executive, who makes the official trip to China this morning, invited by President Xi Jinping, of utmost importance.
The culmination of the visit will be the bilateral meeting that the two presidents will hold next Friday at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Anticipation and expectations are at their peak in Moncloa, where they emphasize that this meeting will send “a very clear image of the international leadership of the Prime Minister”. Already in the final stretch of its current mandate, Spain will assume the six-monthly rotating presidency of the EU on 1 July.
The main objectives of Sánchez in this official visit are three. The most urgent for the global context is the war in Ukraine. The Spanish president will be the first European leader to receive Xi after his meeting with Vladimir Putin last week in Moscow. For Sánchez, the Asian giant is “a stabilizing power”, which is why already in his last meeting with Xi – at the G-20 summit in Bali last November – he urged him to be an active part in resolving the conflict.
Sánchez supports the “just and lasting” peace plan of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and in this sense, he guaranteed it during his visit to Kyiv on February 23. Now he wants to know, “in more detail”, the “positioning document” that Xi proposed to Putin. Despite the Chinese egalitarianism between the Russian aggressor and the Ukrainian aggressor, the Spanish president rejects equidistance. But he observes “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 by President Xi directly”, notes Sánchez.
The President of the Central Government admitted on some occasion as a possible objective a cessation of the Russian aggression in Ukraine before the end of the year, that is, during his rotating presidency of the European Union. And he considers that the role played by China “can be decisive” for the evolution of the war conflict.
In addition to the war, Sánchez will present 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 character, to reactivate projects that were frozen by the pandemic, with the hook of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Sánchez, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will first attend the opening session of the Boao Forum – the Asian Davos – on Hainan Island, the southernmost of China, this Thursday. There he has scheduled meetings 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, once 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 with the main tourist operators of the immense country, which has just re-authorized the trips of groups of Chinese tourists to Spain. Another vein.
