Why Spain’s ‘fruit bowl’ diplomacy with China comes up rather empty

Every time a European leader lands in Beijing with a business delegation, the same speculation follows: is the Atlantic consensus beginning to crack? Is part of Europe drifting towards China and away from Washington? In Spain’s case, the drama expires on contact with the record. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s four visits to Beijing in four years have not produced a European pivot, a strategic vision or a narrower trade imbalance. They have produced market access for agricultural goods. Call it the “fruit bowl” theory of international relations. March 2023 brought Spanish almonds and persimmons to China. September 2024 added eight all-encompassing agreements designed to sound larger than they were. April 2025 unlocked pork and cherries. This month delivered pistachios, poultry, dried figs and more pork. These are not incidental gains attached to a larger deal; they are the deal, with the value of a grocery basket. The gap between Sanchez’s narrative and accomplishments requires looking at the figures. Spain’s trade deficit with China widened to €42.3 billion (US$49.7 billion) in 2025. The Spanish premier has often complained about this imbalance. He has returned with admirable consistency to repeat the grievance while still presiding over its expansion. After four visits and zero concessions from Beijing, Sanchez boasts that Spain enjoys the highest-level political dialogue with China in 53 years. The contrast between what he declares and what he secures is neat: historic interlocution, offal; strategic dialogue, pistachios. A government lacking a single agreement or consultation with parliament on China engagement, and which sells this as elevation, could be said to have subordinated Madrid to Beijing rather than preserving its traditional place within the Western sphere. That in itself would not be fatal if these trips unlocked something more consequential: reciprocal market access, significant investment flows or any adjustment where Spanish and Chinese interests diverge. They have not. Madrid has legitimate reasons to engage Beijing; serious countries talk to major powers, yet engagement is not strategy and visits are not leverage. Spain faces the same market barriers as everyone else. The myth of a special bilateral understanding survives because it’s useful in Barcelona, not because it has produced exceptions in Shanghai. Supporters might point to foreign investment as evidence of a deeper strategic relationship. The argument does not carry far. China is not a significant investor in Spain, and foreign investment requires local approval beyond Madrid’s control as many of those governments are held by the opposition. Additionally, Chinese exports compound the strain, expanding dependence without producing clout. No meaningful technology transfer means, as economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero notes, that the less visible deficit is also the more damaging one. However, the visits serve internal purposes. Sanchez prefers the world’s airport VIP lounges to domestic realities, for good reason. He has been unable to pass a national budget for three consecutive years, surviving through conditional loyalties. A premier shadowed by corruption investigations touching his inner circle welcomes temporary changes of scenery. Travelling does not solve national difficulties, but it changes the camera angle. To a prime minister who cannot govern, Beijing offers what Brussels and Madrid deny him: the appearance of statesmanship. Foreign policy spectacle has long served weak governments in need of borrowed stature. Flags, communiques, state dinners, speeches: a trip pushes the latest misconduct off centre stage. When President Xi Jinping says China and Spain stand on “the right side of history”, he at least knows on which side he stands. The more difficult question is whether Sanchez does. Between institutional disorder, corruption investigations and European Union subordination, the posture collapses on contact: a leader who cannot impose order at home cannot speak as though he is reshaping the world order. For its part, China has little reason to object. Madrid is not a decisive actor in Europe’s China policy, but it can be a useful prop. To understand why the visits multiply despite producing so little, the question might not be what they do for Spain’s relationship with China but what they do for Sanchez’s political survival. What he offers Beijing is acquiescent symbolism. A friendly visitor offering warmer rhetoric on cooperation than other capitals and another image suggesting Western disunity serves China’s narrative at negligible cost. China does not offer substance in return because Sanchez needs the visit more than Xi needs the guest. Beyond the bilateral diplomacy, the picture is no different. The EU’s approach to China is shaped in Berlin, Paris and Brussels, where the industrial weight, institutional authority and policy machinery reside. Spain will not become a dissonant voice against the course fixed in Europe. There is no basis on which Sanchez can become a principal actor in changing the international order and redirecting Europe’s course. Ultimately, the issue is structural. Spain is a secondary actor within a middle-ranking bloc dealing with a major power. Diplomacy can soften that asymmetry, but it cannot change it. Even so, much appraisal of Sanchez’s China policy accepts his framing, as though repetition itself is evidence of strategic weight. Four visits, four communiques, four baskets of agricultural produce. Europe’s China policy remains where it was, and Spain’s trade deficit is larger without privileged market access, tech dividends or genuine reciprocity. The narrative is that China has found a European friend. The reality is more unambiguous: Beijing does not trust Sanchez but sees him as leverage. For China, that asymmetry has not changed. For Spain, it is a problem no photo op will resolve.

Why Spain’s ‘fruit bowl’ diplomacy with China comes up rather empty

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Spain is a secondary actor within a middle-ranking bloc dealing with a major power. Diplomacy can soften but not change that asymmetry

Spain is a secondary actor within a middle-ranking bloc dealing with a major power. Diplomacy can soften but not change that asymmetry