Global Courant 2023-04-12 04:44:56
PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron landed in China for a red carpet reception and all the trappings of a state visit, a three-day tour that was almost a love fest that he clearly hoped would further his ambitions for France to sit at the table of the great powers in a world transformed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of Beijing as the arbiter of global conflicts.
But Mr Macron’s reception on his return to Europe was cold.
Already confused at home, facing huge weekly protests in the streets, he is now berated abroad for what was criticized as his naiveté – first with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he was unable to dissuade from war after an intense courtship , and now with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who wants to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States and has warned of American containment.
The fallout from the trip to China has left the French president more isolated than ever in his six-year presidency, unpopular in France and distrusted beyond it, as he seeks to reshape not only his own country, but the foundations of any international order. . created after the war in Ukraine.
In a short time in China, Mr. Macron managed to alienate or alarm allies from Warsaw to Washington, with his embrace of what a Sino-French statement called a “global strategic partnership with China.” He adopted the Chinese lexicon of a “multipolar” world, liberated from “blocs”, liberated from the “Cold War mentality” and less dependent on the “US dollar extraterritoriality.”
Most concerning, especially for the United States, in an interview with Politico and French journalists on their way home, he suggested that Taiwan’s security is not the problem of a Europe that must resist becoming America’s “vassals.”
How Taiwanese democracy and freedom differ from Ukrainian democracy and freedom, and how the threat of Russian autocracy differs from the threat of a Chinese autocracy backing Moscow, were two questions Mr Macron left unanswered.
Speaking of Taiwan, he said: “The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans should become followers on this issue and be guided by the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”
On Tuesday, the Élysée Palace, home to the president, felt it necessary to clarify France’s allegiances, so clouded the optics had become. France, it said, “is not equidistant between the United States and China. The United States is our ally, with shared values.”
The fact that this clarification was necessary suggested how much Mr Macron had upset his allies.
“The alliance with the United States is the absolute basis of our security,” Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Tuesday in a clear response to Mr Macron, noting that some Western leaders “dream of cooperation with everyone, with Russia and with some powers in the Far East.”
The remark underlined how Mr Macron often speaks for Europe’s aspirations and dreams, even as sharp divisions remain on the continent, particularly between frontline states bordering Russia and fiercely attached to NATO, and the Gaullist vision of Mr Macron of a France “allied but not aligned” with Washington.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, recorded a two-minute video berating Macron, asking, “Is Macron speaking for all of Europe? Is Macron now the head of Europe? Because if he is, there are some things we’re going to have to change.
One of those changes, he said, could be America telling Europe, “You treat Ukraine.”
This suggestion pointed to one of the problems with Mr Macron’s comments. Talk of building European “strategic autonomy” at a time when the United States provides the bulk of military aid to Ukraine seemed provocative, especially with a US election year approaching and growing unrest in the Republican Party over huge spending on Ukraine .
Another was timing: Mr Macron spoke hours before China began threatening military exercises around Taiwan in response to a meeting days earlier between Taiwan’s President, Tsai Ing-wen, and US House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy , in California. .
“It matters when and where you say things,” said Guntram Wolff, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. “If you leave Xi and immediately say that Taiwan is none of our business, that seems bizarre.”
He added: “If you think Europe should give up Taiwan, you will be immediately asked: Who else are you giving up?”
The Biden administration refrained from criticizing its French ally, and the European Union played down any disagreements between Mr Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission who accompanied him to China. She was much more outspoken about Taiwan there, saying, “No one should unilaterally change the status quo by force in this region.”
Ms von der Leyen got none of the lavish attention paid to Mr Macron. China favors nation-states over transnational entities, and was baffled by a speech she gave this month in which she criticized China as “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad”.
At first glance, Taiwan is important to Europe for economic and political reasons. The world runs on Taiwanese chips. The island democracy produces more than 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and about 90 percent of the most extensive.
After China’s crushing democratic aspirations in Hong Kong, the consequences of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and its suppression of liberal democracy would be devastating to the causes that Europe and Mr Macron have pledged to defend in Ukraine.
The French presidential statement said: “Our position on Taiwan is constant. We support the status quo and maintain our exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan, which is a recognized democratic system.”
But after his failed attempt to influence Mr Putin last year with similar talk about a new “strategic architecture” for Europe, Mr Macron has clearly decided to woo Mr Xi. He hopes not only to gain economic and trade benefits, but also to get Chinese mediation in ending the war in Ukraine. There was no evidence of such help from Mr. Xi.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was unimpressed with Mr Macron: “His latest visit to China only emboldens the communists and President Xi, who seems determined to rewrite the world order and take Taiwan by force” , he noted. Twitter.
But it is of course precisely such a republican confrontation with China that Macron, despite himself, does not want to get carried away with Europe.
The direct costs for Mr Macron seem high.
“A debacle,” said Nicole Bacharan, a prominent French foreign policy analyst, of Mr Macron’s interview in Politico, which also revealed that it had urged Élysée to “proofread” the story and “cut some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more candidly about the strategic autonomy of Taiwan and Europe.”
On Tuesday, Mr Macron made another state visit and traveled to the Netherlands. “Our Europe is made of dreams,” he said there, adding: “I don’t want my dreams to be dreamed in someone else’s language.”
It was unclear whether he was talking about Americans or Chinese.
Another large demonstration is scheduled for Thursday in France against Macron’s pension reform. Anger is still running high.
“He is looking for a new orientation,” said a minister who was not authorized to speak and declined to be named. “But without a stable coalition in parliament it is difficult.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Steven Erlanger reported from Brussels and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.
