Peking (ots/PRNewswire) – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez discussed key issues of global peace and economic cooperation on Friday. Both agreed that China and Spain should uphold multilateralism, ensure world peace, and deal with various global challenges through dialogue and cooperation.
Sanchez is visiting China as part of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Before the high-level meeting, he also visited the Boao Forum for Asia in south China’s Hainan Province.
Over the past 50 years, China and Spain have developed a deep friendship through frequent high-level meetings and people-to-people exchanges. The volume of trade between the two countries has expanded significantly, almost doubling from 32 billion euros (approx. 34.8 billion US dollars) to 57.7 billion euros (approx. 62.9 billion US dollars) between 2017 and 2022.
Solving global challenges through conversation and collaboration
Xi expressed the hope that Spain can play a positive role in promoting China-EU dialogue and cooperation, and that both sides can conduct full-scale dialogue and cooperation in a spirit of independence, mutual respect and mutual benefit.
Spain is preparing to take over the EU’s rotating presidency in July and will coordinate the Council’s work and work with other member states to develop a common position on diplomatic issues.
“The solid development of China-EU relations requires the EU to uphold its strategic independence,” Xi said at Friday’s meeting. He said that China and the EU have many things in common: both uphold the international order uphold and advocate for the peaceful resolution of international disputes so that the two parties can work together to address global challenges.
Sanchez agreed that today’s world is full of uncertainties and that only by working together can the world better face the various challenges and promote world peace and development.
The two sides also discussed the Ukraine crisis. China has always advocated peace talks and a political solution to the Ukraine crisis and hopes that the parties concerned will abandon the Cold War mentality and camp confrontation and refrain from extreme sanctions.
“It is hoped that through talks and consultation, the parties concerned can create a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” Xi said.
Sanchez presented Spain’s stance on the matter and spoke positively about China’s 12-point position paper on Ukraine released in February. He paid tribute to China’s constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.
Plenty of room for economic cooperation
China strives to achieve the modernization and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through high-quality development, which will give Spain and other countries a larger market and more opportunities for cooperation.
Stressing the importance of mutually beneficial cooperation, Xi said the two countries should plan their bilateral ties from a strategic and long-term perspective and support each other on important issues affecting their core interests such as sovereignty, security and development.
In order to achieve synergy between the development strategies of both sides, China and Spain must realize their potential for cooperation, Xi said. He added that China is willing to import more high-quality products from Spain and hopes Spain can provide a fair and just business environment for Chinese companies.
Spain stands ready to maintain open communication with China and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, especially in the fields of electric vehicles, green energy and digital economy, Sanchez said. He also hoped China and Spain can strengthen communication and coordination on international and regional issues such as climate change.
With Spain soon to take over the EU’s rotating presidency, Sánchez said Spain will play a positive role in promoting dialogue and cooperation between China and the EU.
In recent years, bilateral trade between China and Spain has grown steadily and has proven to be very resilient and dynamic. China is now Spain’s largest trading partner outside the EU, while Spain is China’s sixth largest trading partner within the EU.
Official data shows that as of February 2022, Spain’s total investment in China exceeded 3.8 billion euros and more than 790 companies were established in China, while Chinese companies invested 16 billion euros in Spain between 2016 and 2020.
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