The main message that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had for his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who visited Beijing this week, is: don’t let Europe get involved in “playing the American game,” Politiko writes.
Beijing wants to avoid the EU falling under even greater US influence, at a time when the White House is pursuing an increasingly determined policy to counter China’s geopolitical and military power.
Russia’s year-long war against Ukraine has strengthened the alliance between Europe and the US, shaken global trade, “revived NATO” and forced governments to consider other pessimistic scenarios going forward. At the same time, Beijing still sees Washington as its strategic enemy (and vice versa).
This week, China stepped up its counterattack by turning to “charming.” Xi welcomed Macron to the grandest of all places – the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron was even greeted as if he were a “rock and roll superstar”, when young Chinese people chanted for him in the street.
This is in stark contrast to the way China has treated US officials, especially since US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing over the spy balloon scandal earlier this year.
American and Chinese politicians know that Europe’s policy towards Beijing is far from resolved – this is both an opportunity and a risk for both sides. In the last few months, the Americans have made a real campaign around the claim that China is ready to send weapons to Russia, at the same time as there is an affair in the US about the dangers of allowing Chinese technology companies to have unrestricted access to European markets.
TikTok (owned by China) has been banned from government and administrative phones in several countries in Europe, including EU institutions in Brussels. US pressure has also led to the Netherlands planning to introduce new export controls on the sale of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.
However, even the “reticent” Ursula von der Leyen, the former German defense minister, rejected the idea of a complete separation of Europe from the Chinese economy. From Beijing’s perspective, this is another significant difference from the hostile business environment promoted by the US.
This Sunday alone, 36 Chinese and French companies signed new contracts ahead of Macron and Xi, which Chinese state media said was a sign of “the continuing confidence of European companies in the Chinese market.”
Beijing sees Macron as a natural partner to help avoid a stalemate in EU-China relations, especially since Angela Merkel — his previous favorite — is no longer German chancellor.
Macron’s willingness to engage on either side — including his much-criticized contacts with Putin ahead of the start of the war against Ukraine — made him the right interlocutor for China as Beijing sought to drive a wedge between European and American strategies toward China.
Strategic autonomy, the focus of French foreign policy, appeals to China, which sees the idea as proof of Europe’s distance from the US. For his part, Macron told Xi a day earlier that France was promoting “European strategic autonomy” and that she does not like the “block confrontation”. “France does not choose sides,” he said, according to reports political
(World)