Driven by hunger, exhaustion and hostility, migrants who swam or climbed over fences to enter Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta were returning home on Saturday, Reuters reported. But the fallout from the crisis is expected to linger. Chinese experts said it has not only heightened tensions among European countries, but also provided fresh ammunition for Europe's rising right-wing parties, allowing them to further weaponize migration as a political issue.

"Selfish, polarizing and unlawful reaction" were the words Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez used in a letter to condemn EU countries, after Italy temporarily placed some border controls on travel from Spain, while France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez ordered extra checks along the countries' shared border. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also called for Spain's membership of the Schengen agreement to be suspended, CNN reported on Saturday. 

Sánchez said in his letter that "such an attitude" was "driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest." "In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarizing and unlawful reaction," he added, per CNN. 

The surge of undocumented migrants crossing from Morocco into Ceuta triggered one of the most serious border crises Spain has faced in recent years, according to the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.

The influx prompted Madrid to deploy military support, tighten border controls and strengthen coordination with Rabat. "Practically the entirety of those who entered Ceuta have already returned to Morocco," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares wrote on X on Saturday. "It is not possible to travel from Ceuta and Melilla to the Peninsula without identifying oneself at a police checkpoint. The integrity of the Schengen Area is absolutely guaranteed."

Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish territory 250 miles to the east along North Africa's Mediterranean coast, constitute the EU's only land borders with Africa, according to the Guardian.

"The latest figure that we have is 72," the Spanish government's delegate to Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez Triano, told reporters, when asked about the number of fatalities, AFP reported. The previous toll was 67 deaths.

On Saturday, leaders from 22 European Union nations called for an emergency meeting to discuss the bloc's response to the Ceuta crisis. In the letter, which sources told Euronews was initiated by Italy and Denmark, member states called for "an extraordinary videoconference of the Ministers of the Interior," describing it as a "matter of urgency."

"We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible," the letter said, adding that they would consider "any necessary measures" to address such risks, "including through reinforcing or reintroducing temporary internal border controls."

Ireland, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said a video meeting would take place on Tuesday, according to Euronews.

Tension inside and outside of Europe

The Ceuta crisis has prompted discussion about unity of the EU. Fox News reported that "the crisis is reverberating far beyond Spain because it challenges one of the European Union's central promises: that member states can maintain open internal borders while jointly protecting the bloc's external frontier."

"The international right has moved quickly too, highlighting the wider risk to European cohesion… The situation is a challenge to the free-movement settlement of a kind not seen since the 2015 crisis, whose reverberations included the UK's Brexit referendum the following year," according to an article published by Chatham House, a policy institute based in London. 

The Ceuta crisis has laid bare the shortcomings of the EU's post-2015 migration reforms, underscoring the bloc's continued struggle to build a unified response to migration, Cui Hongjian, a professor at the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times.

While the EU has spent years refining its migration rules, asylum system and burden-sharing mechanisms, those reforms have failed to address the bloc's deep-seated structural divisions, Cui said. The crisis demonstrates that when confronted with a sudden influx of migrants, longstanding disputes between frontline border states and inland member states over responsibility-sharing quickly resurfaced, with national interests once again outweighing collective European solidarity.

Moreover, the crisis has become a new point of contention among political forces across Europe.

In France, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is running for president a fourth time, signaled she was planning to turn the Spanish crisis into a campaign theme.

"Faced with the massive and coordinated influx of migrants into Spain, encouraged by the Spanish government, France must without delay strengthen controls at its borders," she said on social media on July 31. 

In Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany made major inroads in a federal election in 2017 by exploiting fears of uncontrolled immigration, and could win state elections for the first time this fall in eastern Germany, according to New York Times.

In Spain, Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, also accused Sánchez of inciting "an invasion" with his migration policies. "This national emergency can only be resolved by kicking him out" before Spain's next election next year, Abascal concluded, according to Politico. 

Spain remains one of the few major EU member states still governed by a left-wing administration, making the Ceuta crisis a potent political weapon for right-wing parties seeking to challenge its migration policies, Jiang Feng, a researcher at Shanghai International Studies University and president of the Shanghai Regional Studies Association, told the Global Times. 

With national and regional elections approaching in several European countries, where support for right-wing and far-right parties is rising, the crisis handed those parties a timely political issue. For them, migration has evolved beyond a humanitarian challenge into a powerful symbol of public insecurity, Jiang said. 

Beyond Europe, officials in the US, which has been at odds with Spain over tariffs, also seized on the Ceuta crisis to criticize the Sánchez government and further politicize the immigration issue at home.

"I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place," US President Donald Trump told a meeting of his cabinet at the presidential Camp David retreat in Maryland on Friday.

"It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people, and that same thing's going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected, except worse, much bigger."

The Trump administration has long criticized what it describes as the permissive immigration policies adopted by some European countries, arguing that they have undermined social stability and weakened Western civilization. Against that backdrop, the Ceuta crisis has provided a timely example to reinforce that narrative, Cui said.

At the same time, Cui said, the political fallout from criticism of the Sánchez government by officials in the US could extend well beyond the migration crisis itself. If the issue continues to be exploited for political purposes, it risks further straining Madrid's relations with Washington and could lead to broader diplomatic tensions.

The Chinese delegation submitted a position paper on the country's approach to global cyber governance in the digital intelligence era to the first meeting of the Global Mechanism on developments in the field of ICTs, held from July 20 to 24 at the UN headquarters in New York, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday. Experts said the position paper aims to guide artificial intelligence (AI), a powerful technological capability, to become a tool that benefits human society, rather than one to attack, control and suppress other countries.

Responding to a question on the matter at a regular press conference on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that as the latest step to implement the Global Governance Initiative and build a community with a shared future in cyberspace, China submitted a position paper to the Global Mechanism on developments in the field of ICTs in the context of international security and advancing responsible State behavior in the use of ICTs to share China's latest position and propositions on global cyber governance in the digital intelligent age.

He noted this is another important principle after cyber sovereignty that China put forward on global cyber governance. The document stresses that all countries should observe the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in cyberspace to jointly safeguard peace and stability. It also calls for upholding multilateralism and addressing effectively the disruptive impact of emerging technologies such as AI on cyber security, and formulate international cyberspace rules that keep pace with the times.

Inclusive proposal

The document points out that the digital intelligence revolution, with AI at its core, is developing rapidly. Cybersecurity concerns the sovereignty, security and development interests of all countries. The taboo of "cyber warfare" has been broken, industrial and supply chains have been artificially severed, and the digital intelligence world faces the danger of division and disorder.

Following the vision of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace, China put forward three major propositions - abiding by international rules and safeguarding peace and stability, respecting digital sovereignty and jointly promoting inclusive development and upholding multilateralism and effectively addressing risks.

It specifies that all countries should abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in cyberspace, prevent a cyber arms race, and refrain from using cyber means to damage other countries' critical infrastructure. Countries have the right to independently choose their paths of digital intelligent technology development including AI, as well as to independently choose AI technologies, products, and services in light of their respective national conditions. No country should be forced to take sides. Countries should not engage in any technological monopolies and exclusive arrangements, or pursue digital intelligence hegemony in the name of national priority.

International rules for cyberspace should be formulated in keeping with the times, and a global testing and evaluation standard and system for cybersecurity risk levels of large AI models should be established to ensure that AI becomes a new shield for cybersecurity, rather than a new tool for seeking hegemony, according to the document.

The document concludes that a secure, stable and prosperous cyberspace is of great significance to all countries and the world. China stands ready to work hand in hand with the international community to strengthen communication and promote cooperation, jointly improve a more just, equitable and effective international order in cyberspace, and jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace.

Xiang Ligang, a veteran industry analyst, said that China's position paper represents not only a position on AI, but also a position on relations among countries: nations should respect each other and pursue common development, turning this valuable technology into a capability that enhances social capacity, improves social efficiency and reduces society operating costs.

"Therefore, at the very beginning of the rise of this capability, it is necessary to form institutional consensus and shared principles. AI should not become a tool for a few major powers or interest groups to control the entire world," Xiang said.

The position paper comes after the creation of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) at the just-concluded 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai. Twenty-nine countries signed the agreement on the organization's creation as its founding members, Xinhua reported.

With the arrival of the large language model era, how to define rules regarding data jurisdiction and control rights remains an issue that needs further improvement, Zhang Linghan, dean of the Institute of AI Law of China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times. "The most important aspect of China's approach to digital sovereignty is balancing security and development," said Zhang.

Hegemony a dead end

The position paper's release comes at a time when international media outlets have been paying increasing attention to the performance, cost advantages and rapid iteration of Chinese AI models. The Guardian on Tuesday reported that "It's been the general strategy of Chinese AI companies: open-source and open-weight models, beating US AI companies on price as Chinese manufacturers do."

The New York Times compared the US' and China's AI products strategy, saying that while "companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Google hope to recoup their aggressive spending by selling increasingly useful but often expensive technologies to businesses and consumers, China is offering similar technology free of charge."

"The world is entering what we call the digital era. The only system that is truly independent from the US system is China's. In AI, China emphasizes genuine openness, serving the people, and balancing regulation, development and security. This is different from the US approach of 'all in AI' - China advocates 'AI in all,'" Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Studies, the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.

Xiang pointed out that China's large models are developing rapidly with distinctive features, and a large number of enterprises are developing in different directions, which is precisely the value of open collaboration. US companies started earlier with a higher starting point, but the reason they are now resorting to suppression is anxiety that China has caught up.

The US administration's June 12 move to block non-US residents from Anthropic's most advanced models, Mythos and Fable, on national security grounds prompted the AI company to abruptly suspend access to the models globally, according to Reuters. European lawmakers redoubled their calls for digital independence from ⁠the US.

"The US approach is US-dominated, turning AI into a weapon to attack, control and suppress others so that other countries can't develop. China's rules, by contrast, are common development, mutual support and mutual collaboration, turning AI into a valuable capability," Xiang noted.