In protocol terms, the state visit by Emmanuel Macron to China was a classic of its kind. There was a ceremonial reception. A band of business luminaries accompanied the French President on his Airbus jet into Beijing. There were long talks with President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Qiang and other Communist Party figures.
Even the gifts were calibrated with the skill for which the Quai d’Orsay is renowned. President Macron offered his host a box containing two fine wines, one a Champagne, the other a Chinese Shaoxing wine, according to the Elysée communique.
Xi Jinping, who often speaks of his literary tastes, also received a translation of the Fables of Jean de La Fontaine and a bilingual collection of 60 French and Chinese poets entitled Under the starry sky of poetry.
There was a reprise for those vintage symbols of diplomacy in China, ping pong and pandas. Macron took off his tie and played table tennis with French and Chinese players. His wife, Brigitte, was taken to the famous Panda Research Centre and was assured that more of the amiable animals would be sent to France.
If there was a hard diplomatic outcome, however, it was well concealed by the communiques issued by the Elysée and the reports by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The French President obtained nothing in the way of concessions on the two major issues heralded ahead of his trip, the war in Ukraine and the fast-growing European Union trade deficit with China.
The best that French diplomacy could obtain on the war was the second clause of a joint statement in which both parties “expressed their support for all efforts to reach a ceasefire and to restore peace in Ukraine on the basis of international law and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The communique conspicuously omitted any call for an immediate ceasefire, reflecting Chinese support for President Vladimir Putin and their belief that military and diplomatic momentum is with the Russians.
In effect, it struck a balance between Putin’s claims and the new refrain of Xi Jinping that the “correct” post-war order, which China interprets as upholding its claim to Taiwan, is anchored in the UN.
This might be comforting for the Europeans, except for the fact that China wants to see what it calls “true multilateralism” while “upholding the UN-centred international system.” This is code for diminishing American power. Xi Jinping also put on the record his desire for France and China to work together “to make global economic governance fairer, more just and equitable.”
In practice, China is keeping concessions, if there are any at all, in reserve for its bargaining with the United States, which, for all the talk of a multilateral world, remains China’s main preoccupation and its principal negotiating partner.
A long-cherished order for 500 Airbus planes did not come to fruition during Macron’s visit. Trade diplomats believe the Chinese are keeping that card up their sleeves for negotiations with President Donald Trump, who wants China to buy more Boeings.
While the Macron visit did not deliver any breakthroughs, it was reassuring proof of a return to normality, from ping pong and pandas to mutually annoying trade disputes, levies, inspections and tariffs on products as varied as cognac and electric cars.
The news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying: “Protectionism cannot solve the problems caused by global industrial restructuring, but will only worsen the international environment for trade.”
That was a shot across the bows of the European Commission, which may not have recognised that the Chinese side sees the present trade patterns as “global economic restructuring.”
“I told them that if they did not react, we Europeans would be forced in the months ahead to take similar measures to the United States, for example by imposing tariffs,” Macron said in an interview with Les Echos published on 7 December after his return to France.
Nonetheless, there is less tension overall than during Macron’s last state visit in April 2023, when the US administration of the time feared that China was sorely tempted to take military action against Taiwan and enlisted the French president, among others, to deliver a message of deterrence to Beijing.
Now there are multiplying signs that President Trump wishes to achieve a kind of detente with Beijing. While the latest United States National Security Strategy document affirms the need for a strong military presence in Asia, there is a sense in Washington that the China hawks have been parked in a corner while the president seeks to put his own stamp on relations with Xi.
However, as Macron will have found yet again last week, the Chinese leader is a disciplined communist bureaucrat who does not indulge in personal diplomacy.
Analytically, it is best to divide the French president’s visit into two parts. On strategy, China did not deviate from its positions on Ukraine and on trade, as the ultra-realists in Beijing know that they will ultimately settle with the EU and the US on these issues, not with individual countries.
On the statecraft, however, it was notable that the two leaders had plenty of face time away from their plenary sessions. France’s partners will be awaiting any readouts which the French choose to share from these conversations with national security advisers and other interlocutors. Journalists on the trip noted that the two presidents spent a lot of time talking while on a visit to a historic dam, with no public reporting of the encounter.
Both France and China enjoy the advantage of a rich, varied geography and culture. Thus, it is the practice that on state visits, the leaders go outside the capital. This time, the Macrons went to Chengdu, home of the pandas in their bamboo forests. Chengdu is also a centre of intellectual life and culture, distant from the chilly austerity of Beijing.
Macron took advantage of the slightly more relaxed atmosphere to break away from his security detail and to plunge into a crowd of students who received him enthusiastically. Then, having shed his tie and in an informal mood, the French President spoke to a packed auditorium of young people and gave messages that the Chinese population rarely hears.
“No doubt, every day you have seen and heard talk about the war launched by Russia in Ukraine, which affects Europe directly,” he said.
“There are some who want to make the multilateral world into a multipolar one in which a few powers will restructure the world between themselves and their vassals,” he said, “I think that that is a fundamental error.”
The French President also directly contradicted his hosts by saying: “Those who pit the North and the South against each other are making a mistake,” a rebuke to the propaganda line from China, repeated by Xi in their talks, that the so-called Global South is the victim of discrimination and an unfair trading system.
“Plenty of people want to tell you that Europe is old, arrogant and rich, and that it misunderstands the Global South,” he told the students. “But all that is nothing but inventions and theories.”
Macron delivered one last message from the land of the Enlightenment to his university audience. “We are only free if we are free to know ourselves,” he said, “we must cherish academic freedom, the freedom of study and research. Let us not give in to the siren calls of the forbidden.”
The line was inexplicably absent from the official Chinese coverage of his remarks.
Michael Sheridan is the author of ‘The Gate to China’, an acclaimed history of Hong Kong, and ‘The Red Emperor: Xi Jinping and His New China’, which is published by Hachette Books and has been translated into a dozen languages, including Ukrainian, Polish and Japanese.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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