Macron gets the timing right in China as energetic standard-bearer for Europe
French president was charming but also sent a message as Beijing searches for an EU partner
Once again, timing has been fruitful for Emmanuel Macron, who was unexpectedly elected president of France last year, less than two years after creating his own political party.
Diplomatically, Macron addressed the Syrian crisis and the Korean peninsula with Xi, and asked for Chinese support in counterterrorism efforts on the African continent. And China agreed to work with France on a spring conference on fighting terror financing.
He also successfully appeared as one of Europe’s standard-bearers. In one of his speeches, he declared that “Europe is back”. In the eyes of a slightly sceptical Chinese public, it may have been preposterous, although France is perhaps the best-known European country in Chinese public opinion. The visit by its energetic, 40-year-old leader has attracted quite a bit of interest – not just for his charm and Chinese-language attempts. After all, China wants to increase its presence on the world stage, hence the need for more partners at a time when the United States under Donald Trump appears to be pulling back.
In the current context, Macron is Europe’s most recognisable face: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been in power for 12 years, is struggling to put together a coalition government although she seems to see the end of the tunnel in her negotiations with her potential partner the SPD; Italy is facing uncertain parliamentary elections this spring; Spain has been focusing on the Catalonia crisis; and the United Kingdom is busy sorting out its fate both within Europe and as a stand-alone member of the international community once it will finally be out of the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May will be the next European leader to visit Beijing in late January, but her message will clearly be of a different nature. While France has been firmly at the core of the EU since Macron’s election, Britain is looking for friends and economic partners to go through an uncertain future.
One concrete aspect of Macron’s European discourse has been the economy. In Xian, he threw his support behind Xi’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to revive trade routes connecting Asia and Europe. But he insisted that the new roads “should not be those of a new hegemony, which would transform those that they cross into vassals”. In other words, “If they are roads, they cannot be one-way”.
There is a sense, in Europe, that the trade and infrastructure plan is more about China’s ambition than about other countries’ economies, hence the lack of a firm EU commitment on the whole concept.
Since September, discussions have been under way within the EU to start screening foreign investments – not specifically Chinese – in sensitive technological sectors or infrastructure.
During the visit, Macron also called for China and Europe to work together on climate change. As the host of the 2015 climate pact, France is willing to implement the deal and China also wants to make a difference following Trump’s decision to pull out of the accord. China and France said they would take “joint leadership” on the issue.
As permanent members of the UN Security Council, the two countries certainly had a lot to talk about. Macron has almost five years to deliver, especially on the French economy, and there is no doubt that he wants to make a difference. But China is also searching for a European partner, and France, as one of the most politically stable countries within the EU, fits the bill.
Philippe Le Corre is a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School and a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace