President Emmanuel Macron will land in China this Wednesday and become the first French head of state to pay an official visit to the Asian country after the Covid pandemic.
In his state visit, Macron will be accompanied by the President of the European Commission, Ursula Van der Leyen, in an attempt to present a united diplomatic front with the European Union, before the hard line of the United States.
The French president has one goal: to convince President Xi Jinping to start the path towards peace in Ukraine, which could also include a visit to Kiev. The Chinese head of state has visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow but has not yet spoken to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky, who has invited him to his country.
Macron last met with President Xi at the G20 summit in Bali in November last year.
The French head of state, who claims to have better relations with his Chinese counterpart than with other world leaders, is once again launching another quixotic mission, as when he tried to convince Vladimir Putin of the need for peace in talks that lasted up to 4 hours , at the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, early last year.
Analysts believe Macron intends to play the “good cop” and von der Leyen the “bad cop” as they seek to bend Xi’s will on Ukraine and trade by adopting a “robust” approach to China’s aggressive new foreign policy. They have an inscrutable “Confucianist” in front of them.
Distance from the United States
Critics say the centrist French president is fooling himself if he thinks Xi will use his influence in Moscow to end the invasion of Ukraine. They warn him that instead Beijing took the visit to further its own goals while trying highlight the divisions between the United States and Europeand between EU Member States.
Some diplomats have also suggested that Macron has been weakened by protests in France over his decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Its home front is weakened and may be forced to hold early legislative elections when the protest does not subside in France. He will be in China when a big union rally is scheduled this Thursday in France.
Pressure from Europe
Macron is the latest EU leader to travel to China after Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, in November, and Pedro Sánchez, the head of the Spanish government, last week. They all carry the same message: they are European.
The EU is ready to show that it is ready to deal with China’s “disinformation” and “coercion”, barring Washington’s campaign for “disengagement” from Beijing.
The stakes are high, with 20% of EU imports coming from the Asian country, compared to 12% from the US.
Thierry Breton, French commissioner for the European internal market, said the EU had stopped being “naive” towards China and had cheap weapons to use against Beijing. He said China would plunge into recession and a social crisis if the bloc closed its doors to Chinese products.
A French official said Macron, who last visited China in 2019 before the Covid crisis, would spend “quality time” with Xi during the visit.
“The president is certainly one of the few heads of state in the world able to have talks with Xi Jinping that last six or seven hours,” the official said.
Special dinner
in Canton. Chinese President Xi Jinping will take Emmanuel Macron to dinner on Friday at this place of his choice, the culmination of this visit by the French president to China. The large southern port embodies the mercantile energy of a second world economy in full globalisation. An energy that the Chinese leader wants to project this week against the US siege, which threatens the rebirth of the Asian giant.
Thus, the Chinese leader will respond, in his own way, to the intimate evening offered by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron to the Chinese presidential couple in a Mediterranean villa, on the heights of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, during their visit in 2019. Xi and his wife love the French Riviera and have asked to visit it.
Since then, Covid and the war in Ukraine have strained the bond. But the Chinese president works for the non-alignment between the EU and the United States with respect to China.
Ukraine on the agenda
The Ukraine issue will be on the agenda after China unveiled a 12-point plan in February that significantly changed Russia’s view of what Beijing has called a “crisis” rather than a war.
Macron, who has been criticized for refusing to end his telephone conversations with President Putin until months into the conflict, “will not press China to denounce the Russian invasion,” the French official said.
Instead, an attempt will be made to “find a space to carry out initiatives, which have a useful effect for the benefit of the Ukrainian population and then, create a path to identify a solution to this war in the medium term”. Macron will also tell Xi it would be “disastrous” for China to supply Russia with weapons.
Marc Julienne, head of research on China within its Center for Asian Studies, and Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of its Center on Russia, said: “Attempts by various European leaders to go to Beijing to seek a solution to the war in Ukraine are not only illusory, but help fuel China’s goal of presenting itself as peaceful and constructive.”
The EU strategy
Europe’s non-alignment with the United States vis-à-vis China, on trade matters, is critical to the “world’s factory”, struggling since the Covid epidemic and the war in Ukraine.
This visit is “an opportunity to deepen the global partnership” between China and France, “with a particular focus on relations with the EU,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
He promises “an in-depth exchange of views on major international issues” at a time when Xi Jinping’s persistent support for “his old friend” Vladimir Putin is causing trouble in European capitals.
As the Ukrainian conflict strengthens the transatlantic bond, Beijing urges Paris to resist US orbitto avoid a “decoupling” of the world, enveloping itself in the last wall of globalization.
“The healthy development of China-Europe relations requires the EU to assert its strategic independence,” Xi said as he received Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on March 31 at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
He had invited Madrid to support an opening with Brussels, while Ursula von der Leyen, who will accompany Macron to China this week, toughens her tone with respect to the Asian country.
Thursday’s speech
The Chinese leader will hammer out this message on Thursday, under the gilded Stalinists of the imposing building bordering Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital, with his French guest, betting on Gaullist fiber to avoid the closure of the European market, a more essential partner than ever, in a moment as the US is ramping up sanctions against its tech jewels, including Tik Tok.
The communist regime recalls that Paris was the first major western capital to recognize the People’s Republic, in 1964, in the midst of the Cold War, challenging America.
“They had to make some promises to Macron. It could be a declaration of peace on Ukraine, or announcing an appeal to Volodimir Zelensky, giving the impression that the French president has convinced them,” the specialists explained.
“We need to abandon the Cold War mentality, as well as the logic of blockades, as well as sanctions”, reiterates China, burned by Western reprisals against its Russian partner, fearing being overwhelmed by the turmoil.
Xi knows that his turn awaits him on the Ukrainian front, and that he will play a more active role in favor of a negotiated solution. To appease the Elysée without ever ceasing to go to the Kremlin, according to specialists.
Paris, correspondent
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.