King Felipe heads to China for more Spanish courtship

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By Charlie Devereux and Aislinn Laing King Felipe VI will start the first state visit to China by a Spanish monarch in 18 years on Tuesday as Madrid pursues the most active courtship of Beijing within the European Union.The four-day trip, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of high-level bilateral relations, should further cement business and political interests with China at a time when Spain's ties with the world's other superpower, the U.S., are souring. Felipe, accompanied by Foreign Minister Jose Maria Albares, Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo and a phalanx of Spanish businesspeople, will spend Tuesday in the city of Chengdu before meetings in Beijing on Wednesday with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and top legislator Zhao Leji. The king's visit follows three trips by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in as many years in a strategy by Madrid to rebalance trade relations skewed in favour of Beijing. Spain imported 45 billion euros ($52.5 billion) of goods from China in 2024 while it exported just 7.5 billion euros, according to state trade agency ICEX.China has reciprocated the courtship. In December, Madrid hosted the first overseas edition of the Imperial Springs International Forum (ISIF) - a Chinese equivalent of the Davos World Economic Forum or Allen & Company's Sun Valley Conference. That was seen by China-watchers as a reflection of China's growing confidence in its new best friend in Europe, where other nations are cautious about engagement given trade imbalances, Beijing's relations with Russia and its dominance of critical minerals' supply.Xi made a state visit to Spain in November 2018, at the start of Sanchez's time in office. Spanish pork exporters say closer ties have helped boost sales. Pork exports to China rose 8% to 700 million euros ($780 million) in January-July from a year earlier, even as exports from Denmark and the Netherlands fell and U.S. shipments also declined, data by ICEX show.Spain sent about half of the 682,000 tonnes of pork sold to China during that period, according to the Spanish association of meat industries, Anice. Spain has a product China wants but the pork trade is also "now shaped by a series of geostrategic and geopolitical factors," Grupo Tello Alimentacion export director Javier Briones told Reuters. "We are in China's hands... but we couldn't ask for a better ambassador than the king of Spain...

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