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The recent state visit of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain to the People’s Republic of China — with stops in Chengdú and Beijing — offers a revealing lens into Spain’s evolving foreign-policy posture towards the world’s second-largest economy. With an agenda blending economic ambition, cultural diplomacy, and deliberate symbolism, the visit underscores Madrid’s intent to forge a more substantive bilateral relationship with Beijing. Yet it also raises deeper questions about where Spain truly belongs within the shifting balance between East and West, commerce and conviction.
A visit weighted towards economy and culture
The royal couple arrived in Chengdú on 10 November 2025 to begin a visit centred on deepening cooperation “in the economic, commercial and investment sphere.” The Minister of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, Carlos Cuerpo, accompanying Their Majesties, stressed the need to rebalance a “very asymmetric” commercial relationship and to boost Spanish exports to China. The centrepiece of the trip is a major economic forum presided over by the King, bringing together more than four hundred business representatives — a clear demonstration of the Government’s intent to reduce Spain’s €40 billion trade deficit with China.
At the same time, Queen Letizia is leading the cultural component of the visit, taking part in a ceremony honouring the 150th anniversary of Antonio Machado’s birth — a poet admired by Chinese readers — and later meeting Chinese Hispanists at Peking University. This dual track of economic promotion and cultural outreach reflects Madrid’s conviction that engagement with China must extend beyond commerce to encompass identity, language and prestige — areas where Spain retains global resonance.
Sánchez’s China policy and the logic of diversification
The visit cannot be understood in isolation from the broader foreign-policy course charted by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Since his government’s early gestures towards Beijing, Spain has positioned itself among the more open European capitals in dealing with China. Sánchez himself visited China in 2024, declaring that “a trade war would benefit no one” — a phrase that captured both his pragmatism and his distance from Washington’s increasingly confrontational tone.
In many respects, the King’s trip is the symbolic culmination of that opening: an attempt to consolidate the economic pillar of a policy that sees China not as a systemic rival but as a partner of opportunity. Madrid seeks to attract investment, expand exports, and diversify markets at a time when the transatlantic environment has grown more uncertain. With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Washington’s emphasis on reshoring, tariffs and economic nationalism has unsettled European partners. Sánchez’s government perceives in Beijing an alternative — not ideological, but practical — source of growth and diplomatic relevance.
This strategy of diversification, however, carries risks. It places Spain at the intersection of competing strategic spheres, forcing it to balance its participation in the European project, its dependence on American security guarantees, and its pursuit of new opportunities in the East.
Between autonomy and alignment
Supporters of the visit present it as an assertion of Spain’s sovereignty — a pragmatic exercise in independent diplomacy that places economic self-interest above the blocs and slogans of others. In a global environment increasingly defined by protectionism, they argue, Spain must act where it can and speak to all who matter.
Yet autonomy is not the same as alignment, and alignment is not submission. The more Madrid expands its economic engagement with China, the more it exposes itself to Beijing’s political leverage and market volatility. The relationship remains heavily unbalanced, with Chinese exports flooding Spanish markets while Spanish goods still face barriers of access and recognition. The pursuit of “balance” risks entrenching dependence.
Equally, Spain’s partners in Brussels and Washington will read the royal visit as a signal — however unintended — that Madrid is edging towards a softer line on China just as the West hardens its stance. The European Commission has already warned of the dangers of critical-infrastructure reliance on Chinese firms, while the United States under Trump has revived its calls for a united Western front against Beijing’s techno-authoritarian reach. Spain’s charm offensive in Chengdú and Beijing therefore sits uncomfortably within a climate of renewed transatlantic mistrust.
The Spanish vocation and the Western horizon
In truth, Spain’s strength in world affairs has never come from following the fashions of the moment, but from remaining faithful to its own civilisational compass. The cultural component of this visit — the homage to Machado, the dialogue with Chinese Hispanists — reminds the world that Spain’s influence rests on language, art and a moral heritage that transcends commerce. But it also invites reflection on where that heritage points.
For all the talk of new Silk Roads and Asian opportunities, Spain’s natural horizon has always been Atlantic. Its history, its faith, and its civilisation are intertwined with the Americas, not with the Chinese world. Across the ocean lie nations that share Spain’s language, its institutions, and its cultural DNA — partners with whom cooperation flows naturally, not through translation. A foreign policy that looks East for markets but neglects the West for meaning risks losing both.
Spain’s “connectivity moment”?
The King and Queen’s visit to China is a carefully choreographed gesture of economic diplomacy, culturally refined and politically significant. Spain is demonstrating ambition and confidence, but also revealing the tension between its short-term commercial desires and its long-term strategic orientation.
Madrid is entitled to pursue its interests wherever they lie. But the measure of sovereignty is not the ability to engage all powers; it is the wisdom to know which engagements strengthen the nation’s identity and which dilute it. Spain must ensure that its opening to China does not undermine its European commitments or its transatlantic partnership — the twin pillars of its stability and prosperity since the democratic transition.
Whether this is the birth of a Spanish version of Hungary’s so-called “connectivity strategy” — a deliberate attempt to balance between East and West, coined by Balázs Orbán as the essence of sovereign diplomacy — or merely an erratic effort to step out of Washington’s shadow remains unclear. The difference lies in purpose: strategy has a compass, improvisation does not.
In an age of new rivalries, Spain should remember where its destiny lies. The Iberian gaze, when truest to itself, has always looked Westwards — to the Americas, to the Atlantic, to the world of shared faith and liberty that Spain helped to build. Turning East may promise trade; looking West still offers civilisation. And that, ultimately, is the Spanish way.