Sanchez arrives in Beijing for his second official visit to China in just a year and a half

Eduardo González The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, arrived in Beijing yesterday, where he will begin his official agenda today, his second official visit to China in just a year and a half, which will have a marked agenda both in terms of bilateral and international policy and in the area of economic and commercial relations between China and Spain. Sánchez already made a trip to China a year and a half ago, in March 2023, when he had the opportunity to meet with the country's top authorities: President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Qiang and the President of the National People's Assembly, Zhao Leji. The president left for Beijing this Saturday afternoon, at the end of the meeting of the PSOE Federal Committee, but the agenda of the head of the Executive (who is traveling accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares) begins today in Beijing with the inauguration of the IX Forum organized by the Spain-China Council Foundation and with his attendance at the meeting of the Spain-China Business Advisory Council, created in 2018 and made up of fifteen large Spanish companies and 21 Chinese companies. On a political level, the day will begin with a meeting and lunch with the Prime Minister, Li Qiang, with whom he will sign several agreements and who recently traveled to Moscow to sign a cooperation agreement between China and Russia on investments and meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He will then meet with the President of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Zhao Leji, and will be received by the President of the People's Republic, Xi Jinping, who will offer him a dinner in his honour. During these meetings, according to sources from Moncloa, the deepening of bilateral relations will be addressed, both in the political and economic and commercial spheres. The Government's objective is to consolidate Spain as a strategic partner for China within the European Union, as well as attract more investments and reduce the trade deficit. In addition, Sánchez will address with Xi and the rest of the Chinese leaders the main issues on the international agenda, such as the war in Ukraine or the conflict in the Middle East. In March 2023, Sánchez was the first Western leader to visit Beijing since Xi's trip to Moscow to meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and also the first to personally address with the Chinese leader (by any means) Beijing's twelve-point proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. At that meeting, the President of the Government asked Xi Jinping to “hold a conversation” with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to “learn first-hand about the Ukrainian Government's peace plan. Shanghai Sánchez's trip will continue in Shanghai, where tomorrow he will attend the opening of the business forum. The President of the Government is traveling accompanied by a large group of businessmen and during his stay in China he will take the opportunity to address some important trade issues, such as the possibility of China imposing tariffs on imports of European pork, a sensitive sector for Spain, in response to the decision of the European Union to apply more taxes on the entry of electric vehicles from the Asian country. Sources at Moncloa assured that Spain's objective is to always maintain a constructive attitude in order to try to avoid trade wars. Pedro Sánchez will also attend the launch of the new center of the Cervantes Institute in this city. He will also meet with the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, Chen Jining; and will visit the headquarters of the Chinese energy company Envision and the Tongji startup accelerator, located in Campos Sino-Hispánico (in which, among others, the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Polytechnic University of Barcelona and the University of Seville participate. On Wednesday, the president will visit the Kunshan business cluster, a few kilometres from Shanghai, where there are companies such as Gestamp and Antolín. With this event he will end his visit to China and begin his return to Spain.

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