The Diplomat
Moncloa has announced that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will make a new visit to China this September, a country he already visited in March 2023, as The Diplomat reported.
The information provided by the Presidency of the Government indicates that Sánchez’s trip will take place from September 7 to 12, although, in reality, the days of stay in China will be less, since the long round-trip journeys must be taken into account.
Sánchez will be in Beijing on the 9th, where he will be received by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and will meet with the prime minister, Li Qiang.
That same day, he will preside over the inauguration of the 9th Spain-China Forum, a public diplomacy meeting between the two countries whose last meeting was held in Madrid in 2015. Organised by the Spain-China Council Foundation and the Association for Friendship of the Chinese People with Foreign Countries and with the support of both administrations, the forum was conceived in 2003 with the aim of establishing a platform for dialogue between various actors in Spanish and Chinese civil society.
Sánchez will speak at the inauguration of the 9th edition of the forum together with the president of the Spain-China Council Foundation, Francisco Riberas, and several senior officials from the Asian country’s administration. Since its creation in 2003, the Spain-China Forum has held eight editions in which strategic issues for the bilateral agenda have been addressed, and during its first stage the Spanish part was chaired by Juan Antonio Samaranch.
But the trip will have a marked economic character and Sánchez is expected to participate in the closing of the Spanish-Chinese Business Advisory Council, a body that was created in November 2018, during the state visit to Spain by Xi Jingping, with the aim of strengthening economic and commercial relations between the two countries.
In the meeting of this council, which will be chaired, on the Spanish side, by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Cuerpo, senior executives from around twenty large Chinese companies and as many Spanish companies with interests in Spain or China, respectively, will participate. In March of this year, the members of the Council held a meeting with the Chinese ambassador in Madrid, Yao Jing, at the CEOE headquarters.
But it will not be the only economic meeting that Pedro Sánchez will attend during his visit to the Asian country. On the 10th, he is expected to participate in Shanghai, in a China-Spain business meeting, organized by CEOE, together with the Secretary of State for Trade and ICEX, and which is expected to be attended by representatives of numerous companies from both countries.
Finally, the Chief Executive’s agenda includes the opening of the Cervantes Institute in Shanghai, which joins the one that has been operating in Beijing since 2006. Having this new centre was a long-standing Spanish aspiration, to which the Chinese authorities gave their approval during Sánchez’s previous visit to the country, in March 2023.
At one point there was speculation, as The Diplomat was able to find out, about a possible extension of the Chief Executive’s trip to Mongolia, but this has not been confirmed until now.
