On Monday, the Kings will land in Chengdu, where they will begin their first official trip to China tomorrow. The visit has a notable political element, as it seeks to raise the diplomatic efforts of the government of Pedro Sánchez to the highest level. … It has intensified in the past two years and involves strengthening relations with Beijing to search for economic alliances, at a time when, in addition, there is a noticeable distance between Spain and the United States after the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House.
On Monday, Philip VI will become the first European king to visit China In seven years. Although the Moncloa Palace also depicts the trip as a response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2018 visit to Spain, and on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the countries agreed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the presence of the monarchs in China also takes place in a very delicate context in Brussels: days after the European Commission proposed to impose controls on EU member states so that they do not become “Trojan horses” when approaching China.
If Don Felipe is now making his first visit to China since his announcement eleven years ago, Sanchez has met with Xi Jimping three times in less than three years, which along with Zapatero’s precedent indicates that the PSOE has done nothing more than strengthen relations with the Chinese regime. “The ideal situation is for this visit to be normal and without big headlines,” economist Alicia García Herrero, a senior researcher at the Brussels-based Bruegel Research Center, explains to ABC. “I hope the Kings are well prepared,” he points out, especially since Sanchez’s recent trip to China last April “showed that it is very easy to end up looking what you don’t want to look like”: In the midst of the tariff war with the EU – which has affected the sector’s pork imports, half of which come from Spain – Sanchez traveled to China and ended up taking a photo with Xi Jinping “in which he appeared to publicly support the idea of not having a trade war with China.” China.
The fact that kings are gone “It has enormous symbolic weight.” For this reason, García Herrero hopes that “everything will be calculated so that there is no room for misinterpretations,” and that the preparation for the trip will be “so strict that this Sánchez image cannot be repeated because China will certainly try to transport the kings to its territory.” “They believe that what happened with Sánchez could be repeated but with the king”: that Felipe VI “shows unconditional and unconditional support” for the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
Second world potential
The travel of kings to China should not surprise anyone because it is the second economic power in the world after the United States. “In this type of visit, controversial issues are excluded,” says a diplomatic source consulted by ABC.
What is “undeniable” and what is truly worrying is that “in Brussels they watched the development of the Sánchez government and now they see us as a government.” Excessively pro-China and not neutral“, which generates distance with other European partners and, at the same time, “results in highlighting the current bad relationship with the United States.” “We are getting closer to China and this can also generate doubts,” explains this source, recalling that at the beginning of the year the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, warned Madrid that strengthening relations with Beijing “would be tantamount to commercial suicide.” This reaction on the part of the United States does not reflect the background of the interests of the White House: while they control the relations that other countries of the world have with China – especially with its partners and its key allies – the Trump administration maintains a smooth dialogue with China and concludes its own trade agreements.
“The most important ally For Spain it is the United States of America. “If we look at the statistics of Chinese direct investment in Spain, it is officially around 400 million, and American investment, on the other hand, has halved so far this year but remains at 1.5 billion,” explains Mario Esteban, a professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid specializing in East Asia and principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute. “There is no doubt that the United States is our main source.” Investor. The first thing we should look at is what we got in return for intensifying diplomatic relations. There is an imbalance in economic relations: China invests a lot in Spain, but the same does not happen in the opposite direction. This journey is about stabilizing the trade balance.
When asked whether the diplomatic efforts made over the past two years were worth it, Esteban answered yes, and that the kings’ trip aims to strengthen economic relations, “and we do not have to look for more readings.” He says the meaning of the trip is “much less ambitious than it seems”: “Spain has always had good harmony with China, but both countries have not cooperated as much as expected.” At a time when France and Germany rely heavily on China, Beijing and Madrid saw “an opportunity to strengthen their relations so that they can resemble those they have with other countries.” Esteban explains that with regard to China, “we have always been laggards,” and that nothing happens because we have a dialogue outside the European Union framework, such as the one that other member states have been building for years. Moreover, as he put it, “This does not mean that we are pro-China“In fact, China is very upset with Spain because in Brussels it was one of the ten countries that abstained from the vote on the tariffs.
Managing expectations
However, García Herrero believes that “the outlook is dangerous” regarding this trip: “The hope that through this diplomatic marathon we will get out of China what no one has is wrong.” Especially since “no one can argue that the treatment we received from China was special” in recent years, during the rapprochement between Sanchez and Xi Jimping.
“I don’t think we should do things too much, and I don’t understand how much we care or why we take sides on this issue,” he says. “Europeans do not see Chinese investment as we see it in Spain,” he warns, “where we consider it to be from us, when in fact the numbers say the opposite: China is the twentieth largest investor in Europe – not the main investor at all – and also with many strategic problems.” “There are investments in ports and critical infrastructure and this generates long-term consequences. “One way or another, it ends up being expensive,” the economist highlights. “The more China controls our infrastructure, the more fragile and dependent it becomes,” he adds.
Miguel Otero, professor of international political economy at the Empresa Institute, argues that “Spain is not doing anything different with China than other EU countries are doing” and notes that “there is no equal distance” between the United States and China because Spain is an ally of the former and both are in NATO “but has very important trade and economic interests” with the latter. He believes that Spain “has always been about playing as a team with the European Union” and that now “it is on the agenda to point this out because it is a country that is growing” and is daring to get closer to China. Although Spain is doing what France, Germany and Italy did, “it is now under the crosshairs of the socialist government critical of Trump.”
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