00:00Manuel Munoz is the former Secretary of State for Spain in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
00:06There's a lot of work that comes before these meetings, work at all levels, different ministries,
00:13different stakeholders, the corporate world, you know, the civil society, universities,
00:19in the build-up to the meetings. And then during the meetings, a lot of the work that has been
00:23put
00:23into the trip actually, you know, leads to specific outcomes, as we're seeing here, from
00:30engagement with universities. There have been company and corporate-to-corporate meetings that
00:35happen to, of course, the actual government engagement, government-to-government. So they're
00:41extraordinarily effective in triggering an elevation of the bilateral relationship. So I think it's
00:47right to assess, you know, their importance on their frequency, the size of the delegation,
00:52all of these things are reflective of the work that has been put into the visit and what's to come
00:59after them. So they are really critical. And this is the fourth visit by this prime minister in the
01:04last four years. So it shows the degree to which the bilateral relationship between Spain and China
01:11has been elevated. And I think it's very promising. Okay, well, beyond the diplomatic niceties, I mean,
01:17let's talk about outcomes. What are the concrete outcomes that we should look out for
01:22in terms of this visit? Well, so a number of things, right? So I think the most important,
01:29there's a lot of economic component to the visit. So there's a trade deficit actually between the two
01:36countries, China and Spain. You know, Spain is running this deficit and it's been there for a while. So I
01:47think that we increase the importance of China as an export destination for Spanish companies. And
01:53there's a lot that can be done in that space. I think there'll be another big dossier on investment,
01:59Chinese investment into particular sectors in the Spanish economy, strategic sectors in renewables,
02:05in batteries, in, you know, some critical supply chains. So there'll be discussions around that as
02:10well. So the economic dossier will be very important. And there are issues in there that
02:14need to be ironed out. I think on the strategic dossier as well. So the foreign ministers of both
02:20countries just announced that the relationship will be upgraded to a strategic dialogue, which
02:25means that there'll be annual meetings between the two governments moving forward. And that will be a
02:30space to engage on all sorts of issues. So on peace and security issues, on the future of multilateralism.
02:37Spain has asked China to play a larger role in underwriting and leading the multilateral space,
02:44which is in need of that through its funding and governance issues. So all of those issues will now
02:49be dealt with as part of a strategic dialogue, which will be ongoing annually. And I think that's very
02:54important. And I think there'll be a European dimension to this as well, which is how do we elevate
02:59the Europe-China relationship and how can Spain play a constructive role in doing that? And that
03:05was also the object of the speech that the president of the Spanish prime minister gave in Tsinghua
03:10University yesterday. So, you know, all of these things will now be part of this visit and moving
03:17forward. So those are some of the specific things that I know have been on the agenda. In parallel,
03:23by the way, and this is important, there has been a corporate-to-corporate dimension of the visit. So
03:28a lot of Spanish businesses have accompanied the PM and there have been Chinese businesses on the
03:33other side that have now engaged in a dialogue on cooperation, on joint ventures of different
03:40kinds. So there'll be a long tail of that as well as part of this visit.
03:44So let's see.
03:44Let's get started.
03:44You
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