EMMANUEL MACRON'S VISIT TO CHINA ENDED A DIPLOMATIC FAILURE

According to Marc Julienne, head of China activities at the Asia center of Ifri, nothing went as planned for the French head of state.

For Emmanuel Macron, this state visit is an opportunity to heal the wounds of a degraded Franco-Chinese relationship. The causes are multiple, starting with the Covid-19. China sees us as a middle power, with difficulties. Added to this the imbalance in the trade balance, the deterioration of Sino-American relations and recently the war in Ukraine, the time of the "friend Chirac" seems a long way off.

In addition, France claims to be a leading power in Europe, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a driving force in the "Indo-Pacific". However, it remains deaf and dumb in the face of the paramount security issue in this region, namely stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The Elysée had let it be known that the question would not be broached, except at the initiative of China, a rather surprising attitude when the French president had been warned before his trip that it was going to coincide with an interview on Wednesday evening on the American soil between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the Speaker of the American House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, a "hawk" in the American political apparatus, in favor of more vigorous measures to "contain" the rise of China on the international scene.

This meeting did not fail to arouse the wrath of Beijing, the question of Taiwan therefore being on the agenda of Emmanuel Macron's visit.

Diplomatic failure on Ukraine

President Macron intended above all to try to drive a wedge between China and Russia over Ukraine: this is the avowed objective of the French president for his three-day state visit to the People's Republic of China. But Emmanuel Macron failed.

Indeed, Emmanuel Macron, who came with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, is making this trip at a critical time from the point of view of China's strategic positioning.

On the one hand, President Xi Jinping has multiplied the signs of strategic rapprochement with Vladimir Putin: his state visit to Moscow on March 21-22 shortly after the announcement of the issuance of an arrest warrant against its host by the International Criminal Court, made an impression; his “peace plan” for Ukraine appeared as a backing for the Russian security agenda; and the development of trade with a Russia under multifaceted international sanctions constitutes an objective alliance with the Russian economy.

During the face-to-face meeting Thursday, April 6, 2023 with the master of Communist China in a hall of the People's Palace on the edge of Tiananmen Square, the latter replied to him by welcoming the links with France which have, according to him, known a “positive and steady development” in a world in “profound change”.

Quoted by the English-language Hong Kong daily, the South China Morning Post, Xi was a little more outspoken: "China is keen to invite the international community, together with France, to remain rational and measured and to avoid taking any action that could lead to further escalation in the crisis and spiral out of control. » The most vague formulas which do not commit to anything on what Xi Jinping wants and especially on what Xi Jinping will be able to do with Vladimir Putin to try to "bring him back to reason".

On the commercial level, a more positive balance sheet.

The European group Airbus has indeed obtained the ability to double its aircraft production capacity in China, thanks to a second assembly line at its Tianjin site, near Beijing. It is due to enter service in the second half of 2025. Airbus has already had one since 2008, which has produced more than 600 A320s. The Chinese airline market is the second largest in the world.

The energy group EDF, for its part, renewed with the Chinese nuclear giant CGN their global partnership agreement, in force since 2007. It covers the design, construction and operation of nuclear power plants. This agreement notably allowed EDF to operate nuclear power plants. This agreement notably enabled EDF to build with CGN the only EPR facility currently in service in the world, in Taishan, in southern China.

But this cannot make us forget that thanks to the massive transfers of technology from France, China now masters all the technology in this sector, to the point of exporting power plants to the detriment of the more expensive French power plants.

As for the Marseille shipowner CMA-CGM, number three in the world, it has signed an agreement with Cosco, the Chinese number one, and the port of Shanghai for the supply of bio-methanol. The champion of water and waste management Suez has obtained a contract via a consortium for a seawater desalination project, the amount of which has not been specified.

In 2019, Suez had already won a contract worth one billion euros to treat wastewater from a chemical industrial site in China for a period of 50 years.

Signing contracts for French companies is profitable. But here again, Emmanuel Macron has evaded a very serious subject of concern for France and Europe: the trade deficit with China. Ursula von der Leyen recalled the unequal access to the Chinese market due to protectionism...

If this visit is presented in Beijing and Paris as a success, obviously it is not one. "It's a failure on the diplomatic scene, costly in terms of image", judge the researcher Marc Julienne.

The French president also wanted to embody a "third way" between the United States and China No doubt Paris and Brussels are willing to play an intermediary role between China and the United States.

But the "Taiwanese trap" shows the extent of the difficulties that remain with a Chinese partner which, although seriously weakened by years of catastrophic management of Covid-19, declining economic growth, plummeting demography and a facto of Western and Asian countries allied with the United States and determined to face up, is not yet at the stage where Europe could dictate its will.