When José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero testified before Judge Audiencia Nacional José Luis Calama that his frequent trips to China were essentially in response to invitations to give lectures, he offered an explanation that contrasts with years of documented public and private activity and with the agenda that now emerges in the judicial investigation. The trips did happen, and so did the lectures. But the known documentation paints a much broader picture: that of a permanent interlocutor with political leaders, provincial officials, diplomats, large state-owned and technological Chinese companies, whose presence in the country was consolidated over almost a decade.
EL MUNDO has been following this intense activity in China for years. Since 2016, Zapatero's visits ceased to be limited to academic interventions or international forums to become a stable agenda of meetings with high officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and structures close to the regime.
Spanish diplomats stationed in Beijing describe two different levels. On one hand, the former president who uses his political weight to act as an informal intermediary between Spain and China. On the other, a private advisor who maintains relationships with business groups closely connected to Beijing's political apparatus. Over the years, both facets ended up intertwining.
The judicial investigation now incorporates new elements that help reconstruct this activity. WhatsApp conversations between Zapatero and his secretary, Gertrudis Alcázar, containing messages from April 2025 to May 2026, show an agenda abundant in references to the socialist's connections with China.
The messages do not revolve precisely around the lectures. They talk about meetings with the Chinese ambassador in Madrid, lunches organized with the consulting firm Kreab, contacts with provincial governors, and trips to regions in the interior of the Asian giant. Zapatero's agenda frequently includes meetings with business and political delegations, both in Madrid and in different cities in China, often in coordination with the Chinese Embassy.
For example, in July 2025, Gertrudis informs the former president: "They have paid you for China," while also informing him of his usual monthly income. Days later, she coordinates a lunch with the Chinese ambassador before another trip to the Asian country. In September of that year, there are conversations about a proposal from the consulting firm Thinking Heads - one of Zapatero's payers mentioned in the UDEF report - to travel to the province of Anhui with expected fees of 24,000 euros. Even the secretary suggests consulting with the Chinese Embassy on whether to accept an invitation to an event organized by the Chinese automaker Chery related to a project called green cycling.
The messages also reflect seemingly minor issues - electrical adapters, SIM cards, flight schedules, or companions like his trusted employee Judith Laure Wells - which, together, reveal how China occupied a significant part of his international agenda.
Investigators place this activity in a broader context. Zapatero held meetings with Chinese leaders from strategic cities like Guangzhou, the major manufacturing center of the world's second-largest economy. The agenda includes meetings with the CEO of Huawei Europe and other senior executives of the company in September and October 2025.
Among the most prominent names that appear repeatedly in the WhatsApp conversations is that of businessman Javier Romero, administrator of Chinalink Asia Holdings Limited, a company that, according to a UDEF report included in the case being handled by Judge Calama, made 27 transfers to Zapatero totaling 159,034.45 euros. Romero is also the administrator of Hygreen Energy Developments SL, the European subsidiary, established in Spain, of the Chinese giant Hygreen Energy, of which Chinalink is a shareholder. In January 2025, this company received a grant of 12.63 million euros from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition as part of a public aid program for the development of renewable hydrogen projects.
On May 26, 2025, just a few months after the grant to Hygreen, Gertrudis Alcázar asked Zapatero: "Javier Romero has to deposit 23,000 by the end of the week, or did he already pay you? because sometimes they are not clear." The former president's response was immediate: "Romero deposited 27 a couple of weeks ago." Throughout the chat, there are also other references to personal meetings between them, from dinners and coffees to rearranging his schedule to advance a meeting with the businessman because he had to attend "a meeting with Minister Elma Saiz" on the same day.
According to the UDEF report, Chinalink's transfers would respond to "professional services derived from the former president's current activity." The same documentation also includes income from other companies like Kreab Iberia, which made 55 transfers totaling 851,180 euros, while Thinking Heads paid, between 2021 and 2025, 681,318.04 euros to Zapatero and another 12,297 euros to Whathefav SL, the company managed by his daughters. In the intercepted messages, the secretary and the former president frequently refer to these payments using the abbreviation "TH" and associating them with various international projects.
The UDEF documentation also includes companies like Huawei, Air China, China COSCO Shipping, and China Railway Construction International among the recipients of reports and contacts linked to the advisory activity attributed to Zapatero.
For years, Beijing has cultivated personal relationships with former Western leaders as part of its international projection strategy. In that ecosystem, Zapatero ended up becoming a well-known figure in both political and business forums. The question that the Audiencia Nacional is now trying to clarify is not whether he traveled frequently to China - something well documented - but what exactly was the nature of that activity and whether part of it was linked to the economic operations being investigated by police reports. That is precisely the difference between the agenda shown in the documents and the explanation given before the judge.