Reuters, citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry, announced on 3 November that the incumbent Spanish monarch—King Felipe VI—was planning a 3-day visit to China from 10 November. This event is claimed to be a Spanish monarch’s visit after a lapse of 18 years! The Spanish visit carries intentions to bolster trade ties besides attracting Chinese investments to Spain.
Due to recent trade barriers introduced by the USA, many countries amidst Spain are seeking alternate trade markets to compensate for the loss of trade & income from anticipated declines in trade volumes with the USA.
Mao Ning of the Chinese Foreign Ministry is quoted as the spokesperson of this news item shared at a regular news briefing where China intends to enhance mutual cooperation besides expanding on strategic partnerships between the 2 countries.
Reuters reports that Spain has been actively seeking economic partnerships with China, while the USA, feeling threatened by this development, has already issued warnings to Spain about supporting the second largest global economy.
With the most recent visit during this year’s spring, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, is claimed to have made as many as 3 visits to China during recent years! During a September ’24 visit, Sanchez is claimed to have shared a Spanish reversal to the EU’s earlier decision to impose a tariff on Chinese electric vehicles entering the EU market.
China has, in the meantime, already confirmed investments in Spain for factories for both CATL batteries and the renewable energy group, Envision.
These Spanish-Chinese partnerships come in the wake of a cautious EU towards ties with China due to trade imbalances, China’s close ties with Russia, & China’s dominance of the global supply of critical minerals.
Reuters further states that early this year, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, had been critical of Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo’s suggestion that Europe should align more closely with China.
Bessent is quoted as saying that such action may lead to self-harm, as China could choose to produce more than necessary and subsequently dump the excess in other markets!
More recently, at a summit meeting of both Xi and Trump last week in South Korea, an agreement had been reached between these 2 heads of state to partially reduce trade & technology controls for a period of a year.
As such, tensions that prevailed between China & the USA during the last volatile year have eased somewhat by this development.
