The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will travel next week to Beijing to know “first hand” the position of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, on Russia’s war in Ukraine and to warn him that any “stable and lasting peace” must respect the international order, the UN Charter and territorial integrity, “which is being violated by President Putin”, and allow “the Ukrainians to establish the conditions of this peace”.
Pedro Sánchez plans to participate on March 30 in the Boao Forum for Asia, which is considered as the ‘Asian Davos’ and which meets annually since 2001 in the coastal city of Hainan (southern China) to discuss political and economic issues, and then travel to Beijing, invited by Xi Jingping, to carry out a visit that was being prepared when the coronavirus pandemic was declared and that this time will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
“It is important to know first-hand his position on peace in Ukraine and we will convey to him that it will be the Ukrainians who will establish the conditions for this peace and that it is important to preserve an international order based on rules and to respect the United Nations Charter and the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Pedro Sánchez told journalists in Brussels, upon his arrival at the European Council, in relation to the EU position on the peace plan presented by Xi Jinping.
Last Monday, the EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, declared, regarding China’s six-point plan, that “it takes a very great intellectual effort to consider it a peace plan” because, among other defects, it has not been consulted with the two parties in conflict and places on the same level “the aggressor and the aggressed”. For his part, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg believes that “it does not have much credibility because it has not condemned the illegal invasion”.
Pedro Sanchez, who will travel to Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese president, is the first Western leader to meet with Xi after the latter’s recent visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The important thing is to convey the international recognition that is being given to Spain in such a complex moment of geopolitical difficulties as the ones we are experiencing”, declared the head of the Executive.
In the same vein, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, said yesterday in Madrid that Xi Jinping’s “invitation” to the head of the Executive “demonstrates the importance and international weight of Spain and, above all, of the president” and stressed that Pedro Sánchez will go to Beijing as president of the Government and “about” to be president of the EU Council, “at a time when the world order is transforming as never before since the fall of the Berlin Wall”.
According to Albares, China is “a great demographic, economic and military power and, above all, a permanent member of the Security Council, the body whose function is to ensure world peace, security and stability”. For this reason, he continued, the fact that “he is thinking in terms of peace for Ukraine is something good and positive”.
He also recalled that the Spanish government has “always” asked Beijing, “when there is an opportunity” (for example, during his recent participation in the G20 ministerial meeting in New Delhi, where he met with the new head of Chinese diplomacy, Qin Gang), to use “the personal influence they have over Putin and Russia so that peace returns as soon as possible” to Ukraine.
Last November, Pedro Sánchez held a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping on the margins of the G20 Summit in Bali (Indonesia). At that meeting, the head of the Executive asked the Chinese leader to use “his influence to persuade Russia to put an end to the war” and recalled that Spain, along with the vast majority of countries, has condemned from the outset Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, “a threat to world peace and stability that subverts the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that China has always defended”.
For his part, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, declared yesterday that “there is nothing abnormal” about Pedro Sánchez being invited by Xi Jinping, because “the surprising thing would be if he were not invited”, but warned that the president “will not speak on behalf of his government, but only on behalf of a part of it, and the Chinese know that”.
