As an addition:

European partners criticize Spain’s relationship with China as the Kings dine with Xi Jinping

Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands have shown their concerns towards the Asian country, an attitude and positioning that sharply contrasts with Spain’s approach

… “The Italian Minister of Economy, Giorgetti, already called on the European Union to adopt a united stance against China to curb the threat to our industry. A similar sentiment exists in Germany, where the government coalition is taking the lead in reviewing the trade policy between China and Germany. The Netherlands has made a decision regarding Nexperia, and France is considering measures against Shein,” these same sources elaborate …

Regarding the case of Shein, French authorities ordered the inspection of up to 200,000 packages from the company last week to check for possible violations of regulations, a measure intertwined with the Paris Prosecutor’s decision to initiate an investigation for “dissemination of images or representations of minors of a pornographic nature” affecting this same company, as well as the Chinese platforms AliExpress and Temu …

The European Commission prefers not to comment at this time. In the past, they were very critical of Pedro Sánchez’s government, especially when the Prime Minister visited China and requested not to impose tariffs on Chinese electric cars during EU-China negotiations …

We could all hope that China would lead the world in climate change as the country is the world’s biggest polluter (with coal consumption still on the rise as I wrote just in another thread).

However, China’s is far away of any leadership when it comes to reduce carbon emission.

The scientists from the Climate Actions Tracker call China’s recent announcement to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035 as ‘disappointing’ as China - given the country’s size and economy - would need to cut emissions by around 30% for the world to be on track to the Paris goal.

According to the scientists, no country is on track to Paris, but while the EU and Brazil’s climate actions are insufficient, China and India’s are considered highly insufficient.

So it doesn’t look like leadership.

We could all hope that China would lead the world in climate change as the country is the world’s biggest polluter (with coal consumption still on the rise as I wrote just in another thread).

However, China’s is far away of any leadership when it comes to reduce carbon emission.

The scientists from the Climate Actions Tracker call China’s recent announcement to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035 as ‘disappointing’ as China - given the country’s size and economy - would need to cut emissions by around 30% for the world to be on track to the Paris goal.

According to the scientists, no country is on track to Paris, but while the EU and Brazil’s climate actions are insufficient, China and India’s are considered highly insufficient.

So it doesn’t look like leadership.

That leads the UK in the wrong direction.

Contrary to that, the EU is set to ban Chinese universities from half of Horizon Europe, including health care and defense research in the 2026-27 research programme. Here is a paywalled report on it or the original EU Horizon draft paper (opens pdf) stating that, “Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in Innovation Actions in any capacity.”

In 2024, Spain exported USD 7.7 billion to China, while Spain imported USD 46.6 billion from China (according to the Comtrade database). This resulted in a trade deficit of USD 39.9 billion, slightly higher that in 2023 and the highest in Spain’s trade history with China.

Beijing apparently applies the same playbook with Spain as with all other countries.

What does Madrid strengthen?

China, India, Australia, and many others also skip the summit. So what’s the difference?

Carbon Brief made its analysis based on emission data by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, just read the report. This data is skewed and highly biased.

Carbon Brief made its analysis based on emission data by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, just read the report. This data is skewed and highly biased.