MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday said China should take on a more substantial role in issues including climate change, security, defense, and the fight against inequality, adding that Europe will also have to redouble its efforts as the US withdraws from leadership roles on many fronts.
Sanchez, who is making his fourth visit to China in four years, spoke at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
His visit comes as many Western governments seek to maintain engagement with Beijing despite lingering security and trade tensions.
It follows visits to China earlier this year by the prime ministers of Britain, Ireland, Canada, and Finland.
FASTFACT
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says cooperation is important to build a balanced, globalized economy that generates shared prosperity.
Spain has been one of Europe’s loudest proponents of expanding trade and treating China as a strategic ally rather than an economic and geopolitical rival.
Sanchez said China could do more in terms of fighting climate change, promoting global health, controlling the development of responsible artificial intelligence, and nuclear weapons.
“For example, by demanding as it is doing, that international law be respected and that the conflicts in Lebanon, Iran, Gaza and the West Bank, and Ukraine cease,” he said.
“Europe will also have to redouble its efforts, especially now that the United States has decided to withdraw from many of these fronts.”
Sanchez is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, where they will focus on geopolitics.
China accounted for 74 percent of Spain’s total trade deficit, Sanchez said, adding that cooperation was important to build a “balanced, globalized economy that generates shared prosperity.”
Madrid hopes Sanchez’s visit will narrow Spain’s trade deficit, which more than doubled in four years to nearly $50 billion in 2025.
It is looking to boost agricultural and manufacturing exports to offset high volumes of China’s imports.
China’s official news agency Xinhua on Monday said Sanchez’s visit was set to further consolidate bilateral ties and pointed to a broader pathway for steady engagement between China and Europe at a time of growing global uncertainty.
The naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz announced by US President Donald Trump “makes no sense,” Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said.
“I too think it’s something that makes no sense ... It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral into which we’ve been dragged,” she said in an interview on Spanish public television.
