EU tariffs on China 'an act of solemn stupidity'

Spain's Marcelo Muñoz has been named a Friendship Ambassador to China and called EU tariffs on Chinese EVs "an act of solemn stupidity."

Muñoz was the first Spaniard to open a business in modern-day China and after a lifetime dedicated to dialogue and understanding, has received the recognition of the prestigious honorary title from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Spaniard has been a trailblazer in promoting East-West dialogue for over 45 years. As the leading Spanish voice in Sino-European relations, Muñoz has written five books on the subject, the latest titled China Is Here To Stay, and is currently working on his sixth.

He is only the third European to receive this prestigious award after former International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch and stood alongside former Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Ante Simonic.

'Immense pride'

"Naturally this is a moment of immense pride for me," Muñoz tells CGTN in Madrid. "I didn't realize but I was in the first row and was the first to be greeted by President Xi Jinping at the event.

"I'm lucky to be, I believe, the only European to have seen the transformation of China over the past 46 years from the inside because since 1978 I have been in constant contact with Chinese society, economy, technology and politics.

"That's allowed me to understand a little, something which the West doesn't accept: that this profound transformation is returning China to the world's first power, which it once was for 2,000 years – an economic, technological and scientific world leader – something most people don't know here, we ignore China.

"That's the great downfall of Western arrogance, we don't know and we ignore China."

China's nine political parties

Provocative, thought-provoking and always fascinating, Muñoz has a perspective on China that few in the West do. "When I first arrived in China in 1978, it was a very poor country, a country with a hardline communist regime, it was a different world," he adds.

With "endless curiosity" and "enormous respect," he set out to understand this new world in a constant dialogue with the friends, colleagues and clients he met through his successful consultancy firm that helped Spanish businesses set up shop in the country.

"My employees knew exactly what was happening politically in China, because there isn't just one party," Muñoz continues. "There are nine. And those nine parties all participate in the National Congress and the National Assembly.

"I've had to study Chinese history, examine Chinese thought and Chinese philosophy, which is one of my degrees. It's been a dialogue with a different world – a civilization more or less advanced than mine? I don't know but one that's equal and on the same level.

"And it's that different world that the West doesn't accept. We can't transfer our values to China. China doesn't want to impose its system on anyone else. Never, not once in history, we're the ones trying to impose our system – with what right? How are we better? Is our system really superior?

"Until the occident gets off its pedestal of superiority, a genuine dialogue is very difficult, it has to be a dialogue of equals."

Muñoz argues the modern political and ethical values of China are based on Confucian philosophy that developed over 2,500 years of various Chinese dynasties.

He says: "The philosophy of the European enlightenment from the French Revolution onwards that breaks with the Christian European state where Gods no longer rule but parliaments, that European philosophy and the Confucian philosophy coincide, there a dialogue is possible."

'We need to get serious'

It feels almost embarrassing to ask an intellectual powerhouse like Muñoz about something as mundane as the current trade spat between the EU and China, but his perspective is clear.

"Firstly, I would say we need to get serious and speak with China, have a genuine dialogue with China. If we look at this with any sense of perspective, these tariffs are completely nonsensical," he explains.

"China is already building factories in Europe – one in Barcelona and another in Hungary – so within a year or so they will be European electric cars. Tariffs have no place and it's pointless getting all tangled up in a trade disputes now. As a European, to me this is an act of solemn stupidity, a waste of time, this is just about putting the brakes on China.

"Or as Washington puts it every day: to 'contain' China. What naivety! Contain China? How? With war? Such naivety. The West won't dare start a war to China and China will never want a war. Not over Taiwan or anything else in the world.

"Taiwan, which we give such importance to. If we look at it from a Spanish perspective, Taiwan is to China what Ibiza is to Spain. In terms of size, economy and everything else. We need to stop wasting our time."

'A shared dialogue, a shared future'

Muñoz says the future belongs to co-operation, adding: "Let's use the time to come to agreements, to lay the foundations for technological co-operation and joint research. China is betting on a shared world, a shared dialogue, in a shared future."

One area that can play a positive role is tourism, he says, and Spain should reciprocate with visa-free travel to Chinese tourists. Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and many other European and Asian nations can now travel to China for 15 days visa-free.

"I think tourism is an important method of communication between countries," says Muñoz. "We can visit China visa-free now, so let's do the same and offer visa-free travel to Chinese tourists. So many would come.

"Chinese tourists spend more per person in Spain than any other tourists, it would be good for us.

"What's more is that Chinese tourism isn't seasonal, it isn't sun and beach tourism, it's cultural tourism and shopping which doesn't affect the mass tourism from other countries, so why don't we do it?”

Peace, co-operation and communication - the pillars of the philosophy of Spanish bridge builder, Marcelo Muñoz.

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