French President Emmanuel Macron has said that it is not in the EU’s interests to accelerate a crisis over Taiwan, and that following the US agenda would sacrifice the bloc’s strategic autonomy.
Who could fault his logic? Certainly not Chinese state tabloid the Global Times, which wrote: “In the eyes of normal people, Macron’s emphasis on protecting his country’s interests is not news.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would have been delighted to read them, too. US and EU politicians were less welcoming.
The comments were made in an interview with French newspaper Les Echos and Politico Europe as Macron was departing from a state visit to Beijing. He had been accompanied on the trip by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who had made it clear prior to leaving Europe that the purpose was to present a united EU approach to Xi. Following a trilateral meeting that included Von der Leyen, Macron spent more than four hours with Xi.
Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy for the EU was first developed in response to former US president Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, bolstered by the “stab in the back” by US President Joe Biden’s administration over the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal between the US, the UK and Australia in 2021.
The concept is sound, but it is Macron’s baby and it requires joint parenting by the EU as a bloc.
The first reason to fault his comments concerns the intended show of EU unity.
Norbert Roettgen, a member of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, congratulated the French president for managing “to turn his China trip into a PR coup for Xi and a foreign policy disaster for Europe,” adding that Macron was “increasingly isolating himself in Europe.”
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China issued a statement on Monday saying: “It should be emphasized that the president’s words are severely out of step with the feeling across Europe’s legislatures and beyond.”
Despite Macron’s assertion during the interview that he had already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe, without inter-bloc unity, the concept of strategic autonomy is dead in the water. That his comments came immediately after the meeting with Xi makes his position appear like capitulation for trade benefits at worst and a misreading of the dangers of following this path at best.
The second reason concerns additional comments he made during the interview: “How can we credibly say [to China] on Taiwan: ‘Watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?... If you really want to increase tensions, that’s the way to do it.”
It was almost as if Xi had dictated the memo.
What happened to standing up for international law and basic human rights? Whatever happened to liberte, egalite, fraternite? On the pragmatic issue of trade, it seems that the rest of the EU is more attuned to the threat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) than Macron appears to be.
Macron has been played. His stance coheres perfectly with Xi’s clear intention to subvert the existing world order and supplanting it with one in which China is at the center. He has been persuaded to run like a jilted lover from the US’ arms to the demonstrably fickle embrace of the CCP.
The pushback against Macron’s comments displays some unity within the EU and the West, and that can be taken as a positive. However, Xi has obtained a small victory in driving a wedge between the unity of the French president and his EU counterparts and Western allies, and this is just one battle in an ongoing war.
The international world order is already unravelling. The likes of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to dictate the narrative.
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