613 Georgina Higueras Spain-China, ten years of strategic partnership http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee CONCLUSIONS China launched strategic partnerships at the height of its international isolation. The focus of the strategic club was to improve China’s image in a changing world. Although the goals of the partnerships were not well defined, the idea was to open up the Chinese economy and modernise the country, while ensuring the peace and stability required to boost development. The Chinese government stepped up its bilateral relations in order to promote a new world order and, initially, to get closer to Russia and the U.S., although it never managed to establish a strategic partnership, as such, with Washington. By the 21st century, with a thriving economy and a comfortable international position, it shifted from traditional reactive diplomacy to proactive diplomacy and undertook specific actions, such as that aimed at lifting the arms embargo with the EU. The European countries in favour of ending the embargo became strategic partners. The case of Spain is a paradigmatic one. Despite being considered “China’s best friend in Europe”, economic relations between the two countries have been weak and not able to keep up the changes that occurred in the two countries; nevertheless Beijing put relations with Madrid on equal footing with those of its most important partners. Spain, clinging to the illusion of triangulation, saw this as a new opportunity for its business sector, but China took the geostrategic approach to try to build up support in Brussels. Its priority was to rally enough support to have the arms embargo lifted; Spain, during its presidency of the EU in 2010, gave China its full backing until the pressure exerted by the U.S. became too much to bear. Ten years after the establishment of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and Spain, the two countries claim they are satisfied with the way relations have developed during this period, even though their hopes – the lifting of the embargo and triangulation - have not been realised. Primary sources Interview conducted by email with the Chinese Ambassador to Spain, Zhu Bangzao, on 03/09/2014. Interview conducted by email with the former Socialist minister and President of the European Parliament, Enrique BARÓN, on 11/07/2014. Interview conducted by email with the former Spanish Ambassador to China, Eugenio BREGOLAT, on 23/06/2014.
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