At the invitation of his colleague Xi Jinping, Sánchez will be in China on Thursday and Friday; he will meet with the host leader in Beijing and attend the Boao Economic Forum for Asia on Hainan Island.
The socialist leader will become the second leader of a European country to go to China since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out three years ago, after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did so in November.
French President Emmanuel Macron will do so later, from April 5 to 8, accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Xi Jinping’s invitation to mark the 50th anniversary of Beijing-Madrid relations shows the “international recognition that Spain is receiving at such a complex time of geopolitical difficulties,” Sánchez said for a European on his arrival in Brussels last Thursday Summit.
His meeting with the Chinese president will be dominated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a conflict in which the Chinese leader wants to present himself as a mediator. China’s “voice” “must be heard to see if we can end this war,” Sanchez said Friday.
“intermediary”
Spain “does not (…) belong to the first tier of global players” nor “is it a key player” in contacts between China and Russia, but “it can be a mediator” in that it has a “simple “relationship” with Beijing , estimates José Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the Madrid office of the European think tank ECFR.
Since coming to power in June 2018, Sánchez has aimed to increase Spain’s visibility, which is why he has a busy international agenda.
After “years of loss of influence in Europe” mainly as a result of the economic crisis from 2008, the Spanish government has “showed a much more proactive attitude in recent years, with a greater ability to defend positions, to present ideas” after Brussels, said Raquel García, Expert on Spanish European politics at the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid.
Sánchez, who managed to promote his then Foreign Minister Josep Borrell to the top of European diplomacy in 2019, also benefited from the loss of the “certain leadership” of the Franco-German axis to “give the time a differentiating element”. To be able to develop alliances with other countries, Garcia said.
The Spanish leader, who is very Atlantic, has shown his full support for Kiev, where he has traveled twice, since the start of the Ukraine conflict.
leadership in the EU
Despite being geographically distant from Ukraine, Spain has taken in more than 165,000 refugees from that country, the most in the EU behind only Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, according to Eurostat.
“Spain is not in the G7, in the G20 it is just a permanent guest who is not a member. So it is within the European Union that it can best exercise that leadership,” said Raquel García.
From this point of view, taking a clear position on an issue that is currently central to the region, such as Ukraine, is “exactly one way to strengthen leadership in Europe,” he added.
Even more so when you consider that Spain will hold the rotating presidency of the EU Council for one semester from July 1st, a topic that will not go unnoticed during the visit to Beijing.
“China wants certain things from the European Union and will want to get closer to Sánchez,” said José Ignacio Torreblanca.
This diplomatic taste of Sánchez, who is even said to have international ambitions at the end of his political career in Spain, could be an asset in the general elections later this year, although national issues are likely to weigh more heavily on voters.
“There is always, logically, a temptation to use European politics and foreign policy for this voting ground at home, mainly for a very simple reason: because there is no opposition in foreign policy,” said Torreblanca, who currently leads polls.