Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will visit China this week to discuss how Beijing could play a bigger role in ending the war in Ukraine.
Mr Sánchez will be the very first Spanish prime minister to visit China since President Xi Jinping began his third five-year term. He will also be the first European leader to meet his Chinese counterpart since the latter met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow two weeks ago.
Given the absence of major obstacles in Sino-Spanish relations, as confirmed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry before the visit, Mr. Sánchez’s trip should focus on the Russian war in Ukraine and the role potential of China as a mediator for peace.
However, Mr Sánchez will do so in his capacity as head of Spain’s government and will not act as a spokesman for the European Union as a whole, government sources said.
The Chinese media have interpreted Mr. Sánchez’s visit, as well as that to be made in the coming weeks by French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as a signal of Brussels’ support for the participation of China to the peace plan for Ukraine.
The meeting is likely to be swayed by the approach of Spain’s EU Council presidency, as observers will wait to see whether Mr Sánchez can secure concrete commitments from the Chinese president and whether the EU will show receptive to his proposals for peace
China claims impartiality over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many Western observers believe Beijing backs in fact Moscow
Xi Jinping’s visit to Spain in 2018 was one of the most significant moments in the 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. China has been visited by every Spanish prime minister since the first high-level visit in modern times, by King Juan Carlos I in 1978.
Relations hit a rough patch in 2013 when a Spanish court used universal jurisdiction to indict former Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin for alleged repression in Tibet, although the case has since been buried.
