<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong><span class="jCAhz ChMk0b"><span class="ryNqvb">The Vice President of the People's Republic of China, Han Zheng, begins a visit to Spain this Wednesday, where he will be received by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and King Felipe VI.</span></span> </strong></h4> Han's visit is part of a mini-tour of Europe that began on Saturday in Nice, where he attended the United Nations Conference on the Ocean and was received by French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Han Zheng—one of the highest-ranking state leaders and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee—will meet with Pedro Sánchez at the Moncloa Palace this Wednesday and will be received in audience by the King at the Zarzuela Palace on Thursday, according to reports from the Presidency of the Government and the Royal Household. Han's visit comes two months after Pedro Sánchez's official trip to Beijing, the President of the Government's third visit to China in just three years. During that visit, both leaders attended the signing of several trade agreements favoring important Spanish products such as pork and cosmetics. China is one of the countries in the world hardest hit by the new trade tariffs announced last week by US President Donald Trump. Furthermore, these two-way visits coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and Spain, signed in Madrid in 2005. In this context, President Xi Jinping himself has invited the King and Queen to make a state visit to his country throughout 2025. Sources at Moncloa (the Spanish government) specified that work is underway on a possible visit by Felipe VI and Queen Letizia to China. Sánchez's trip to Beijing was harshly criticized by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who warned that "Spain must decide whether it wants to stand with Europe or with those who undermine its principles." In response to these remarks, the Prime Minister affirmed that maintaining a "positive agenda" with the US "is no obstacle to continuing to build better relations with other parts of the world" and asserted that "Spain's foreign policy is not against anyone; it favors understanding between countries, the defense of the international order, and free trade." That trip was also harshly criticized by the People’s Party, which believed it could outrage the US. In this regard, the PSOE recalled that the current leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, traveled to the Asian giant in 2017 when he was president of the Xunta de Galicia (Galician regional government), and that the then President of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, also traveled to Beijing in 2014 and met with Xi Jinping. Specifically, Han's trip to Spain includes, according to sources from the Andalusian Regional Government who spoke to <em>Diario de Sevilla</em>, a trip to the Andalusian capital to meet with the president of that region, Juanma Moreno (PP), and with the top brass of the Andalusian government, and to attend a dinner in his honor at the San Telmo Palace.
