Pedro Sánchez will be received in Beijing with the honors reserved for official visits of the highest level in the Great Hall of the People, an emblematic building located in Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital. There, the President of the Government of Spain is going to hold bilateral meetings with the three highest authorities of the Asian country to address various issues of international importance, among which the peace plan proposed by his counterpart Xi Jinping for Ukraine stands out.
The conversations on this matter will be especially delicate, since I know that they will take place with a speaker who has defended that he maintains a “neutral position” in the face of the war conflict, which he refers to as a “crisis” avoiding the word war, but who This Thursday it has announced that it will strengthen its military collaboration with Russia. In fact, one of the questions that the Spanish president is going to ask is that he not deliver weapons to Vladimir Putin, in addition to defending that both the aggressor country and the victim of a “brutal and illegal invasion” cannot be placed on an equal footing. .
Sánchez will be able to show his “seamless” support for Ukraine, which is also shared by all the states of the European Union, before the Prime Minister of China, Li Quiang, with whom he will hold a meeting this Friday morning, followed by the signing of cooperation agreements between both countries and a lunch. Later, he will meet with Jingping himself and will conclude the short list of dialogues with the authorities of the second world power by speaking with the president of the National People’s Congress, Zhao Leji.
These meetings will take place just after Beijing announced this Thursday that it will “deepen military trust” with Russia and that both countries “will jointly safeguard international equity and justice,” according to a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense. , reports Reuters. They have also pledged to “implement global security initiatives” and to improve their maritime and air collaboration.
With the shadow of this conflict looming over his official visit, the head of government is going to complete his economic agenda with a group of Spanish businessmen based in the Asian nation and with another group of local tour operators. The latter is precisely one of the specific issues that will be addressed within the framework of this international mission, since the objective of La Moncloa is for Spain to once again be a preferred destination for Chinese tourists after Beijing authorized the past 15 of March the organization of group trips after three years of closing borders due to Covid.
The pandemic is still very present in China, where visitors are required to carry out a PCR at source and confirmatory tests on arrival. However, little by little a country hard hit by the virus is returning to normality, which for the first time since 2020 has once again held its Boao Economic Forum in person, a benchmark annual event on the continent that is organized on the island of Hainan, in the south of the country.
Among the participants in this edition is Sánchez, who this Thursday dedicated a part of his speech to denouncing that the war in Ukraine is causing “a serious humanitarian crisis, food insecurity, inflation and growing debt anguish in a number every of vulnerable countries”. He has also stressed that for its resolution the presence of “responsible and constructive” actors is necessary, while he has praised the initiative of the Chinese leader to try to establish himself as a mediator in the search for peace before the announcement of the strengthening its collaboration with Russia in military matters.
Later, the Spanish president held bilateral meetings with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and with representatives of the highest level of the companies AstraZeneca and Mitsubishi before flying to Beijing. Although the official reason for Xi’s invitation is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the moment in which it occurs has given it a dimension that transcends this bilateralism, especially when Madrid will hold the rotating Presidency of the European Union during the second quarter of this year.
“Europe and Asia must join forces to face global challenges and take advantage of any opportunity to promote dialogue and cooperation,” Sánchez stressed this Thursday in that key. And, already in his role as national leader, he has highlighted that Spain is one of the best places on the continent to invest and do business due to its “ideal geopolitical position, a robust private sector, a great digital and physical infrastructure, institutional stability and a highly skilled workforce.
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