Philip VI inaugurated his state visit to China with a first speech of great economic content. The King assured that this trip reflects the desire to “continue to strengthen” relations between the two countries. “Spain has established itself as a reliable partner and an increasingly attractive destination for Chinese investment and trade collaboration,” he said. And, at the same time, he asked Spanish companies to make it easier to enter the very complicated Chinese market. “If we want to build a solid and long-lasting economic relationship between Spain and China, we must do so on the basis of mutual trust, openness and legal certainty,” he said during the opening of the Spain-China Business Forum, held in Chengdu on Tuesday.
The capital of Sichuan province, a city of over 21 million inhabitants in the south-west of the country, is the initial stop of the first state visit of the kings of Spain to China after 18 years. The monarchs will travel to Beijing on Tuesday afternoon, where they will be received by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan with a private dinner. Philip IV’s official meeting with Xi will take place on Wednesday in the Great Hall of the People, the gigantic building in Tiananmen Square reserved for high-level political meetings.
The trip, which adds to the three that the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, has made to China since 2023, highlights the growing harmony between Beijing and Madrid in recent years, which has earned Spain the raised eyebrows of some European capitals and direct criticism from the US government. “It would be like cutting your own throat,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in April of the trade rapprochement between Spain and China.
The trade agreement signed last week between the United States and China, after the meeting in South Korea between the American president, Donald Trump, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, gives some oxygen and a point of legitimacy to the Spanish government’s line: everyone, in the end, must dialogue with China, the second largest economy on the planet.
“We are aware that our main trading partner in the EU is the United States,” Economy Minister Carlos Body, who is part of the delegation, said in Chengdu on Monday. “Hence the effort we have made since the very beginning when possible tariff measures were announced by the United States to try to prevent the raising of trade barriers.” At the same time, according to Corpus, if the EU intends to be a “main actor” at a time when “geostrategic and geoeconomic rules are being redefined”, it is necessary to “engage in conversations and negotiations” with all the main actors. “And one of them obviously has to be China.”
Felipe VI mentioned this international context of “growing complexity which affects both geopolitical stability and the performance of our economies”. In this scenario, “Spain, together with the European Union, maintains its firm commitment to an international system based on clear rules, transparency and respect for legality,” he said.
The economic forum, held at the Gran Hotel Meliá in Chengdu, was attended by 180 Spanish and 260 Chinese representatives. Early in the morning, the corridors were filled with businessmen and women milling about, sipping coffee and chatting. Among them was Alberto Herranz, director of Interporc, the association representing white pigs. The industry has a lot at stake on this journey. Beijing imposed temporary tariffs on European pork in September in retaliation for EU tariffs on electric cars. He justified the measure as part of an investigation anti-dumpingsomething that the Spanish government did not accept well: the measure hit one of the main sectors of Spanish exports to China, which moves around 1,200 million euros, in a context of theoretical rapprochement between countries, and after Spain withdrew its support for European tariffs on electric cars in 2024.
Pork entrepreneurs see the business meeting and the King’s presence in China as an opportunity to promote dialogue and to allow Beijing to recalibrate its tariff blow: “It comes at a key moment for us,” says Herranz, pointing out that the final decision on tariffs by China’s Ministry of Commerce is expected in December and that Chinese taxes reduce the competitiveness of Spanish companies.
Among the guests also Pan Jian, co-president of the Chinese battery giant CATL, a world leader in the production of batteries for electric cars and one of the companies at the forefront of Chinese investments in Spain. “I believe that Spain has great talents, numerous high-level engineering faculties, the government is very efficient and (the country) has a stable political environment,” Pan underlined, in a press briefing, the reasons why his company decided to build, together with Stellantis, a battery gigafactory in Zaragoza. The investment amounts to approximately 4.1 billion euros and will generate, according to Pan, more than 4,500 locals with “high qualifications and high salaries”.
One of the great challenges for Spain, and for the EU, is to convert the Chinese landing, which is already a reality, into something more than simple assembly plants; ensure that there is real knowledge transfer and that quality jobs are generated.
The King underlined the importance of developing “strategic alliances” in sectors with high added value such as the automotive industry, technological innovation or green energy, “areas in which we share a vision oriented towards the future and sustainability”. He defined Spain as “an open and dynamic economy, fully integrated into global value chains”. And he called for deepening collaboration so that Chinese projects in Spain “generate added value, develop capabilities, facilitate technology transfer and strengthen Spanish competitiveness”.
Spain, like many countries, has been suffering for years from a structural trade imbalance with China, the great factory on the planet. The cross trade amounts to 52,641 million euros in 2024, but with a very large deficit, of 37,707 million euros, in favor of China. There are around 400 Spanish companies established in China and almost 300 Chinese ones in Spain, even if the investments accumulated by the Asian giant are greater in terms of volume in the European country.
The King invoked the “need to move forward in resolving the difficulties that some of our companies still encounter in carrying out their activities” and asked that steps also be taken “to open up markets” in some sectors, such as the agri-food sector. “We are particularly excited to be able to promote, together, new opportunities for collaboration that result in the mutual benefit of our companies and the prosperity of our people,” he concluded.
The Kings’ visit also has a cultural aspect, which Queen Letizia addressed this Wednesday. While the King met with regional authorities, she attended an event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sevillian poet Antonio Machado in Wangjianglou Park, with shaded walks under a bush and classical-style pagodas.
The event was conceived as an intercultural dialogue; The verses were read by the Spanish writer, who has several translations into Mandarin, and also by Xue Tao, a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty, one of China’s periods of greatest artistic and commercial splendor. Xue Tao spent part of her life in exile in Chengdu, and is one of the few women from that period whose verse has survived to this day.
“Fearful gusts of wind rage from afar,” read Dong Fan, a local actress and president of the Sichuan Folk Art Theater. He also recited, in Mandarin, the famous lines of To a dry elm, by Machado, which sounds: “Lăo yúshù, céng bèi léijí”. This is: “To the old elm, broken by lightning.” For those at an advanced level: “老榆树,曾被雷击”.
