{"id":3539,"date":"2026-04-13T16:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3539\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:57:07","slug":"spain-pushes-china-to-assume-global-leadership-role-during-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3539\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain pushes China to assume global leadership role during Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish<\/a> Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday pushed China<\/a> to embrace a larger role on the world stage as Europe <\/a>increasingly turns to Beijing amid growing tensions with the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sanchez\u2019s speech at Beijing\u2019s Tsinghua University follows recent moves from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and others to tighten ties with China after the Trump administration redefined its relationship with Europe, leading many allies to question Washington\u2019s commitment to long-standing alliances.<\/p>\n

On the day before he is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Sanchez pushed back against the notion that Europe holds little value and called on China <\/a>to help fill what he described as a new power vacuum left by the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope may seem small on a map. But its weight is decisive, and its unity is a guarantee of stability and prosperity in the world, a world that cannot be understood without China,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cWe are called upon to understand one another and to cooperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope \u2060will also have to redouble its efforts, especially now that the United States has decided to withdraw from many of these fronts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Sanchez asked Xi to ramp up involvement in the Iran war<\/a>, as many European countries question the U.S.\u2019s handling of the conflict. Sanchez has closed Spain\u2019s airspace to U.S. planes being used in Iran, and refused to allow the Pentagon to use jointly operated military bases in southern Spain. Beijing was already involved in pressing Iran to make a two-week ceasefire deal with the U.S. that was reached last week, and it has been rumored to be helping the regime rearm before the truce ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChina can do more,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cFor example, by demanding as it is doing, that international law be respected and that the conflicts in Lebanon, Iran, Gaza and the West Bank and Ukraine cease.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also pushed Beijing to open its markets to European exports, particularly as Spain holds a nearly $50 billion trade deficit with China.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need China \u2026 to open up so that Europe does not have to close itself off,\u201d the prime minister said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spain is one of a host of countries that faced sweeping repercussions when President Donald Trump was sworn into office for a second term in January 2025.\u00a0The Pentagon\u2019s 2025 National Security Strategy, released that fall, embodied the shift, noting that <\/a>\u201cthe days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,\u201d and that it is \u201cfar from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new administration\u2019s more transactional tone towards Europe highlighted perceived sweeping trade imbalances that the White House sought to rectify through Trump\u2019s global \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs, which caught allies off guard.<\/p>\n

The continent, and longstanding partners such as Canada, were again thrown into turmoil by Washington\u2019s skepticism of NATO, which was revived with the onset of the Iran war as Trump expressed outrage that members of the alliance were not doing more to aid the U.S. in the Middle Eastern conflict. The administration\u2019s vocal accusations that allies have moved away from commitments to democracy, free speech, and other values that undergird Western civilization, particularly noted in Vice President JD Vance\u2019s speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, further deteriorated the relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SpanishSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center left, and his wife Begona Gomez, left, arrive at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Monday, April 13, 2026. (Andres Martinez Casares\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Many countries have begun to reset relationships<\/a> with China amid fallout with the U.S. A stream of leaders, including\u00a0German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron, have met with Xi in recent months to do just that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not just one game,\u201d Carney warned the U.S<\/a>. last fall, as Ottawa touted efforts to reduce dependence on Washington <\/a>and boost economic ties with Beijing. \u201cThat\u2019s the point. There are other games, and yes, we\u2019re going to spend more time, to extend the analogy, in the game with the United States, but we\u2019re going to play other games with other players.\u201d<\/p>\n

XI JINPING\u2019S PURGE OF GENERALS SETS GRIM TONE FOR ANNUAL COMMUNIST PARTY MEETINGS<\/a><\/p>\n

China has sought to capitalize on the tensions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more turbulent and intertwined the world becomes, the more China and Germany need to strengthen strategic communication and enhance strategic mutual trust,\u201d Xi said in February during a meeting with Merz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday pushed China to embrace a larger role on the world stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[335,66,31,2606,305,17,2607],"class_list":{"0":"post-3539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-mark-carney","12":"tag-nato","13":"tag-spain","14":"tag-xi-jinping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}