China hits back at Emmanuel Macron’s ‘groundless’ jab over Chinese regional dominance

China on Friday hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron’s warnings against allowing a single nation to dominate the Indo-Pacific region, where many countries fear Beijing’s growing might.

During his visit to Sydney on Wednesday, Macron said France, India and Australia shared a responsibility to protect the region from “hegemony” – in a remark widely interpreted as a stab at China.

“What’s important is to preserve rules-based development in the region ... and to preserve necessary balances in the region,” Macron said.

“It’s important with this new context not to have any hegemony.”

But Beijing shot back on Friday, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying that while she had not seen Macron’s comments, any fears about Chinese hegemony amounted to “groundless accusations”.

“In the eyes of the world, which country could be said actually to be exercising hegemony in the world nowadays? Who has also long exercised military or economic hegemony of every kind in the region?” Hua said, in a thinly veiled reference to the United States.