“The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans should be followers,” the French president said in an interview with Les Echos about the Taiwan issue during his visit to China. Emmanuel Macron refused to “enter into a logic of block to block” which would amount, for the European Union, to “adapting to the American rhythm and to a Chinese overreaction”. Questioned even before the start of the Chinese military maneuvers around Taiwan, Emmanuel Macron calls on Europe to “wake up”.
“Our priority is not to adapt to the agenda of others in all parts of the world,” he insisted. “Why should we go at the pace chosen by others? At some point, we have to ask ourselves the question of our interest”, knowing that “we do not want to enter into a logic of block to block”, he insists.
The head of state had discussed Friday with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping the question of the island. Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a province, opposes any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments. This includes Wednesday’s meeting in California between Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen and Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, which sparked the ire of Chinese leaders and sparked three days of military exercises.
Friday, “the conversation was dense and frank” between Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping, said the Elysée, reporting the vigilance of the French head of state around “the accumulation of tensions in the region” which could lead “overcrash”.
Pleading for “strategic autonomy” to be “Europe’s fight”, Emmanuel Macron warns against “accelerating the conflagration of the duopoly” China – United States, at the risk of not having “the time nor the means to finance” this “strategic autonomy”. “We will become vassals when we can be the third pole if we have a few years to build it,” he argues.
“The paradox would be that when we put in place the elements of a real European strategic autonomy, we started to follow American policy, by a kind of panic reflex”, continues Emmanuel Macron.
The French head of state also congratulated himself on having “won the ideological battle” within the European Union. “Five years ago it was said that European sovereignty did not exist.” He pleads to “strengthen our defense industry” and “accelerate the battle for nuclear and renewables” on the continent.
