• Sanchez politician will discuss with Xi Jinping his plan for peace in Ukraine
  • Why has China invited Pedro Sánchez? Xi Jinping and his great diplomatic offensive, in which "Spain has always been a great support"

The Great Hall of the People, the building used by the Government of the People's Republic of China for great occasions, will be the place where President Xi Jinping receives his Spanish counterpart this Friday with the honors reserved for the highest level visits. Pedro Sánchez will also be the first European leader to land in Beijing after the Asian giant has taken a step forward to try to establish itself as the international mediator to end the war in Ukraine.

The guest of honor of China will arrive at this meeting of "great political significance" for the moment in which it occurs – as they emphasize in La Moncloa – with a very specific request: that it does not deliver weapons to Russia. The scope of this message is framed in the context of the trip that the Chinese leader made to Moscow last week to meet with Vladimir Putin.

In that visit, Xi presented a peace plan for the war being waged in Ukraine and that, according to the Government, has points in common with the road map proposed by Ukrainian President Volodímir Zelenski. In particular, they highlight the reaffirmation of the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states, which in the eyes of the Spanish Executive would imply returning to the borders prior to the Russian annexation of the Donbas and Crimea regions in 2014; and the outright rejection not only of the use of nuclear force, but even of the threat to do so.

Beyond the specific content of the document, in the Executive of Sánchez they value very positively that China has abandoned its "position of passivity" regarding the conflict to assume a leading role and actively participate in the search for solutions, as the Spanish president had requested in the bilateral meeting he held at the G-20 Summit in Bali last November. They consider that the capacity as a world power is essential to end a war with devastating impact on a global scale and highlight especially the influence it can exert on Vladimir Putin to convince him to abandon his offensive actions in Ukraine.

Even so, they also underline their differences with the Chinese approach to the conflict, in which they understand that both the aggressor and the attacked country are placed on an equal footing. In this sense, the sources consulted emphasize that both the position of Spain and that of the rest of the countries of the European Union has been from the beginning of seamless support for Ukraine as a victim of an invasion by Russia that has violated its internationally recognized borders, a vision that will be shared during the official visit this Friday to Beijing.

In La Moncloa they assume that the war can be prolonged at least for the rest of the year and next 2024 and express their firm commitment to continue supporting Zelenski, both with the training of military and with new shipments of weapons beyond the six Leopard tanks committed. "Whatever it takes," stress government sources, who do not rule out that even that aid can be translated into fighter jets, as the Ukrainian president requested Sánchez in his visit a month ago to Kiev.

The condition that the Spanish leader is going to pose to Xi to try to find a way out of the conflict is that it is Ukraine itself that decides the conditions that have to be met to be able to sit down at a negotiating table and accept a ceasefire or any other proposed solution. They also emphasize that it is very important that he hold a meeting with Zelensky as soon as possible, with whom, unlike Putin, he has not met.

The approach made from Madrid is that China is emerging from a stage of political and diplomatic isolation after its closure of borders for three years as a result of the Covid pandemic, that it has to recompose its international image and that, in addition, it is essential that it participates in the search for solutions to global problems that without its involvement would not be possible to solve, regardless of the reason why you decide to do so.

Sanchez's International Tour

Sanchez arrives in China today after having met with more than 40 world leaders in just seven days. On Thursday and Friday of last week he attended the European Council in Brussels, from where he then flew to Santo Domingo to attend the Ibero-American Summit there, in which 13 heads of state and as many representatives of delegations from countries in the area were present.

This visit of the Spanish president to Beijing comes after that of his German counterpart, Olaf Scholz, and that of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel. For next week is also scheduled that of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and later that of the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, although without a date at the moment, and probably that of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell.

Although his two-day tour of China that begins today Sánchez attends as a representative of Spain and under the umbrella of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the visit comes three months before the Spanish leader assumes the rotating Presidency of the European Union until the end of the year. In addition, in his team they specify that the position of the 27 regarding the Russian invasion has been coordinated and joint from the beginning and that in that sense the messages that will be transferred will be very clear.

Beyond trying to cooperate in the search for an end to the war in Ukraine and strengthening their bilateral diplomatic relations, the visit of the Spanish delegation to Beijing will also have a strategic dimension in the search for solutions to the challenges facing the international community, such as energy supply. In this context, it will be argued that Europe needs autonomy and reduce the dependencies that make it vulnerable, not because the Asian giant is considered an enemy, but because in the face of recent experience of the effects of a pandemic and the shortage of products, it is obliged to react.

In addition, the Government of Sánchez will try to reduce the asymmetry of its trade balance with China, with a permanent deficit between imports and exports, with the aim of minimizing tariff barriers and facilitating the participation of companies in the country's public tenders. Finally, it will try to relaunch Spain as a tourist destination for a market with high purchasing power that was interrupted by the Covid health crisis and to which Beijing gave the green light again on March 15, authorizing group travel to Madrid again.

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  • China
  • Xi Jinping
  • Pedro Sanchez