When Donald Trump included Spain in the BRICS group last January, many thought the U.S. president had made a blunder, assuming that the “S” stood for Spain rather than South Africa, or that it was just one of his usual verbal gaffes. But the truth is that the facts are proving him right. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s stance on the war that the United States and Israel are waging against Iran earned him congratulations from the Ayatollahs’ regime, just as the Taliban and the terrorist group Hamas did for his “no to war” stance during the Gaza war, and has brought Spain closer to the multipolar world than to the West. Iran is a key strategic ally of China, so Sánchez’s refusal to allow the use of U.S. bases in Spain and his statements against the United States and Israel have been welcomed by the People’s Republic.
For some time now, Sánchez has been the new “hero of Europe” in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership and its general secretary, Xi Jinping. A true comrade in the service of the Party, as has become evident during his recent visit to China. In a speech before some 500 students at Tsinghua University—the university for the children of China’s elite— Sánchez defended multilateralism and called on the People’s Republic to become more involved in building a stable multilateral system based on international law—the very same law that China’s main ally, Russia, flouted in February 2022 and continues to violate thanks to Chinese support—and to put an end to “conflicts such as those in Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank, or Ukraine.”
Sánchez stated that Spain “knows that China is rebuilding its greatness. That it is already the world’s leading exporter of goods and the fourth-largest exporter of services. That its industry and science are transforming the fight against global warming and also reducing poverty.” China is the world’s biggest polluter and responsible for 28.4% of CO2 emissions, and, in his reference to science, Sánchez points to a 1.6% reduction in emissions by 2025 and improved urban air quality. However, this has not been achieved through green policies, but rather through the massive relocation of heavy and polluting industries to the central and western regions of the country—areas with fewer regulations, lower incomes, and less public scrutiny—and does not represent a total decarbonization of industry. Sánchez, who boasts about his climate policies, has ignored this fact.
Following his speech at the university, Sánchez met with Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People. The Spanish president emphasized the importance of deepening the strategic relationship with China and his commitment to a multipolar order that would bring peace and stability to humanity in the face of threats to international law. “I want you to know,” said Sánchez, addressing the comrade General Secretary, “that Spain will rise to the historic challenge at hand, that it will be courageous, clear, and predictable, and that it will always work toward understanding among nations.”
Xi Jinping did not hesitate to praise Spain for its defense of the international order because, like China, “we have principles and advocate for justice, and we are willing to stand on the right side of history,” in contrast to “the law of the jungle” represented by the United States and Israel. For the General Secretary of the CCP, “Spain and China can help provide solutions to the various trade tensions that exist and to the geopolitical difficulties and complexities of today’s world, to wars, and to the environmental and social challenges affecting the world.” The narrative of the idyllic multipolar system sounds just as bombastic as classic communist propaganda.
The fact that the Prime Minister of a European Union and NATO member state is defending and aligning himself with the Chinese Communist Party’s geopolitical agenda should set off alarm bells throughout the Western world; yet the major Western media outlets are lavishing praise on the Spanish president for his firm stance against Trump regarding Iran. TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist—which eight months ago called for his resignation on corruption charges—or The Washington Post are presenting him as a new leader of Europe’s resistance to the U.S. president’s warmongering. This narrative closely mirrors the “hero of Europe” label with which China flatters Sánchez. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.
In his article “El rastro chino en la prensa occidental” (The Chinese Footprint in the Western Press) journalist Javier Benegas highlights the economic ties between some of the most influential Western media outlets and the Chinese state’s media ecosystem: “The Wall Street Journal received around six million dollars for publishing supplements such as China Watch, produced by China Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language newspaper whose function is to project a narrative abroad that is always favorable to Beijing’s interests. The Washington Post exceeded $4.6 million in similar deals; TIME earned $700,000 in a short period of time for the same reason; the Financial Times is also on the list; and The New York Times was on it until 2020.” For example, a recent article in The Economist claimed that the Iran deal had been a terrible mistake by the Trump administration, based on the opinions of all sorts of anonymous experts who turned out to be Chinese. It is therefore no surprise that Sánchez has gone from villain to hero in many media outlets in a matter of weeks.
Beset by corruption that extends to his own family, a government propped up by pro-independence and far-left parties, and political weakness so severe that it has managed to pass only three general budgets in seven years, foreign policy and the direct confrontation with Donald Trump have provided Pedro Sánchez with an escape route and a boost in popularity. However, this is not enough to explain the Spanish president’s subservience to Beijing’s interests; we must go back more than twenty years, to 2005, to find the origins of this alliance, when the then-Socialist president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. Based on this agreement, China became a strategic priority for Spain in 2008.
Bilateral relations and visits by Chinese leaders to Spain increased with the return of the Socialists to power under Pedro Sánchez, and have risen significantly since 2024; at the same time, Chinese companies have stepped up their investments in key sectors of the Spanish economy, ranging from renewable energy and technology—Hygreen Energy, Sermatec, and China Three Gorges— (CTG)—to the automotive and electric vehicle sectors—Chery and BYD—and logistics and infrastructure, where Chinese companies have invested in port infrastructure for international trade. The Chinese company COSCO Shipping Ports holds a 51% stake in the CSP Spain terminal at the Port of Valencia and is the largest shareholder in the Bilbao port terminal. It should be noted that the Chinese investment model is by no means a panacea, as it repatriates virtually all of its profits, does not contribute to technology or knowledge transfer, and, in many cases, relies on labor imported directly from China.
In addition, last summer, the Ministry of the Interior awarded the Chinese company Huawei a contract worth more than 12 million euros to manage court-authorized wiretaps for the state’s law enforcement agencies. This contract sparked a new clash with the United States—the U.S. Congress launched an investigation and the White House decided to suspend intelligence sharing with Spain—as well as with the European Union, which warned the Spanish government that the contract could “potentially create a dependency on a high-risk supplier in a critical and sensitive sector, thereby increasing the risk of foreign interference.” On March 19, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Tamara Ćapeta, ruled—citing Huawei—that member states may ban technology manufacturers deemed “high-risk” from European telecommunications networks on national security grounds. However, the Sánchez government still stands by its decision.
China’s influence in the European Union is not limited to Spain alone, but no European politician has gone as far as the Spanish prime minister. Comrade Sánchez has described the Chinese communist dictatorship as a “model of progress” and has chosen to “embrace” multipolarity, effectively becoming a Trojan horse that is dragging Spain on a journey to nowhere outside the Western bloc.
