Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for embracing a multipolar world order on Monday while delivering a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He warned against outdated zero-sum perspectives and cited the experience of 16th-century Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci to illustrate the danger of a single-centered worldview.

The Spanish prime minister kicked off a five-day official visit to China on Sunday, his fourth trip to China in four years.

"Four hundred years have passed, but unfortunately, there are still people who see the world through that original, distorted map," Sanchez told an audience of university officials, faculty members and students. "That view is not only wrong, but very dangerous. It traps us in the past and limits our imagination of possibilities."

Recalling Ricci's arrival in China in 1583 with a European map that placed Europe at the center and Asia at the edge, Sanchez said that Chinese cartographers at the time asked why China appeared on the periphery. Ricci then redrew the map with the Pacific Ocean at its center — a lesson, Sanchez noted, that remains highly relevant today.

"What is happening today is not a transfer of hegemony, but an increase in multipolarity — in both power and prosperity," he said.

He added that progress is taking place simultaneously in different regions with different cultures and political systems — in China, Africa and Latin America — without anyone's permission. "A multipolar world is not an assumption or an ideal, but a new reality. We cannot change it; we can only deny it or embrace it," he said.

Spain, he said, chooses to embrace it with realism, responsibility and hope. "If Spain, China and Europe have achieved shared prosperity in the past, there is no reason we cannot do so again," he said.

Sanchez said that Spain seeks a relationship with China based on mutual respect — cooperating where possible, competing where necessary, and managing differences when unavoidable.

Also on Monday, Sanchez toured the premises of Chinese tech company Xiaomi in Beijing, accompanied by Lei Jun, its founder, chairman and CEO.

During his visit to the company's technology exhibition hall, Sanchez learned about the latest products, including automobiles, smartphones and smart home devices. Sanchez picked up the Xiaomi 17 Ultra Leica edition. After trying it out, he smiled and invited Lei to take a group photo using the phone.

Xiaomi has deep ties with Spain."Xiaomi has placed great importance on the Spanish market, entering Spain as early as 2017," Lei wrote in a Weibo post.

Sanchez also visited the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he toured an exhibition on China's latest scientific and technological achievements and was awarded an honorary professorship by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn