<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The future creation of a new center of the Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, agreed during the recent visit to China by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will be reciprocated with the launch of a Chinese Cultural Center in Barcelona, which makes Spain the first country in Europe to have two headquarters of the network of Chinese Cultural Centers overseas.</strong></h4> The network has around twenty branches around the world and a dozen in Europe. To date, in Spain there was only the Chinese Cultural Centre in Madrid, attached to the Chinese Government, which was established in 2012 under a bilateral agreement for cultural exchange between China and Spain and which has the same status as the Instituto Cervantes in Beijing. The agreement for the establishment of the centres was signed on 9 September in Beijing by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Chinese Minister of Culture and Tourism, Sun Yeli, under the agreement between Spain and the People's Republic of China on the Establishment of Cultural Centres, signed in Madrid on 14 November 2005, and the Annex Protocol to the bilateral Agreement on the Establishment of Cultural Centres, signed in Madrid on 28 November 2018. as reported on Monday by the Official State Gazette (BOE). The Cervantes Centre was inaugurated on 10 September in Shanghai (a city with more than 29 million inhabitants and considered the economic capital of China) by Pedro Sánchez. This is the second centre opened by the Cervantes in the Asian giant - the first was in Beijing in 2006 - making Spain the first country in Europe to have cultural centres in two Chinese cities. The agreement between Albares and Su also includes the creation of a Chinese Cultural Centre in Barcelona. Therefore, and in fair correspondence, the Chinese Cultural Centre in Barcelona will be the second in our country and, therefore, Spain will also be the first country in Europe to have two Chinese Cultural Centres. The centres in Shanghai and Barcelona will operate independently and neither of the two cultural centres will be subordinate to each other. The Shanghai Centre will be under the direction and supervision of the Spanish Embassy in the People's Republic of China, while the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China will be responsible for the work of the Barcelona Centre.
