War in Ukraine to headline Macron-Xi talks on French president’s China trip

The war in Ukraine and economic relations will be top of the agenda when French President Emmanuel Macron visits China this week. China’s foreign ministry confirmed on Monday that Macron’s three-day trip will start on Wednesday and include a meeting with President Xi Jinping. “President Xi Jinping will hold talks with him to jointly plan and lead the future development of Sino-French relations, and deepen cooperation between China, France and Europe in various fields,” ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. “They will exchange in-depth views on major international and regional issues.” Macron will also hold talks with Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, chairman of China’s top legislature. He is expected to broach tensions in the Indo-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, as well as concerns about French business operations in China and the country’s financial creditor role to the developing world. “The presidents of France and China will hold extensive discussions on the war in Ukraine to work towards restoring peace and compliance with international law, particularly the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” the French president’s office said in a statement. The French leader’s trip will overlap with a visit to China by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and comes just weeks after Xi met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow. During their meetings in the Russian capital, Xi and Putin signed a joint statement to support Beijing’s proposal for peace in Ukraine, saying talks were the only solution to the war. The proposal was criticised in Europe and the United States for failing to call for the withdrawal of Russian troops and ignoring Kyiv’s sovereignty claims in the occupied territories. Von der Leyen said Xi’s visit to Moscow was a “stark reminder” of Beijing’s global aims. She rejected China’s proposals for peace in Ukraine, but said: “China has a responsibility to play a constructive role in advancing a just peace.” “Far from being put off by the atrocious and illegal invasion of Ukraine, President Xi is maintaining his ‘no-limits friendship’ with Putin’s Russia,” she said. “But there has been a change of dynamic in the relationship between China and Russia. It is clear from the visit that China sees Putin’s weakness as a way to increase its leverage over Russia,” she said, adding that the “power balance in that relationship has now reversed”. Pang Zhongying, an international relations professor at Sichuan University in China, said Macron and von der Leyen would continue to urge China to exert its influence over Russia to end the war, emphasising their common ground with Beijing on the need to respect territorial integrity and condemnation of threats of nuclear force. “If China does not use its relational power with Russia, then it would be hard for Western leaders to believe in its peace plan or talk of a political settlement,” Pang said. Economic issues will also be high on the agenda of the visits, but von der Leyen said last week that the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, which Beijing hopes to revive, was unlikely to happen. She also said the bloc would consider restricting European companies’ investment in China in sensitive sectors such as robotics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. “President Macron also intends to defend the interests of French businesses and ensure that a balanced relationship with China benefits French businesses and consumers,” the French statement said. China was still the third-largest partner for European Union exports and the largest partner for EU imports last year, with the value of EU imports from China increasing by 63 per cent compared with 2020. China was France’s seventh-biggest trading partner in 2021. Von der Leyen also visited Washington in early March to discuss cooperation on raw materials to try to reduce the EU’s reliance on China. Almost all rare earths in Europe are sourced from China. Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa, a fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong, said von der Leyen would also use the trip to assess whether mediating in complex geopolitical conflicts, such as that between Saudi Arabia and Iran, would become the norm for China during Xi’s third term as leader. “European Union officials are recognising China’s success in mediating – it was a diplomatic achievement – the Saudi-Iran deal,” he said. “It seems that there’s a shift in perspective now in Europe, suggesting that China could replace the US in its role of pacifying regions of great geopolitical significance.”