Four trips, dozens of deals, and one message: Madrid is moving closer to Beijing – on its own terms
When Spain’s Pedro Sánchez arrived in Beijing in April for his fourth visit in four years, he did so for a tightly choreographed round of high-level meetings with Xi Jinping and senior Chinese officials, alongside business and academic engagements.
Officially, the visit revolved around cooperation: trade, green energy, technology, and multilateral governance. Spain, Sánchez reiterated, rejects the fashionable rhetoric of “decoupling” and instead champions interconnected supply chains. He urged China to take on a greater role in global governance, from climate change to artificial intelligence to nuclear security.
This sounds like standard globalist responsibility-sharing talk, but there’s a strategic motive behind it. Spain is stepping into a role that others in Europe have either abandoned or mishandled: that of a credible, influential interlocutor with Beijing.
Brussels’ favorite son vs. Europe’s usual suspect
To understand Sánchez’s growing relevance, one must contrast him with Hungary’s now former prime minister Viktor Orbán. Both favor engagement with China, but only one is taken seriously in Brussels.
Orbán’s approach – conservative, sovereigntist, and openly combative – has long cast him as a convenient outlier for the EU’s liberal elites. Sánchez, by contrast, is Brussels’ model pupil. He aligns with the European Commission on migration, climate orthodoxy, and regulatory expansion, projecting the image of a leader fully in tune with the union’s progressive agenda. He does not challenge the EU’s ideological architecture, which is why Spain’s voice carries more weight in Brussels.
As the fourth-largest contributor to the EU budget and one of its fastest-growing major economies, Spain offers Beijing something Hungary could not even under ‘China-friendly’ Orbán: access without disruption. The result is a curious inversion. Europe’s most effective advocate for engagement with China is not a populist, but a leader deeply embedded in Brussels’ political mainstream, with all the inclusivity, sustainability, and wokeism that entails.
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