In an interview with the business daily Les Echos published on Sunday April 9, Emmanuel Macron returned to his official trip to China and his exchanges with President Xi Jinping. The President of the Republic notably returned to the role that, according to him, the European Union (EU) must play in relations between China and Taiwan.
Refusing to “enter into a block-to-block logic”, Emmanuel Macron urges Europe not to “be a follower” vis-à-vis the United States or China. “The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans should be followers” and “adapt to the American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction”, declared the French head of state, in an interview granted on Friday and carried out even before the launch of major Chinese military maneuvers around Taiwan on Saturday.
In this interview, Emmanuel Macron calls on Europe to “wake up”, because, he believes, “our priority is not to adapt to the agenda of others in all regions of the world”. And to insist: “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”.
Vigilance around “the accumulation of tensions in the region”
The head of state discussed the issue of Taiwan with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday. China, which considers the island 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 drew the ire of Chinese leaders and sparked three days of military maneuvers.
On Friday, “the conversation was dense and frank” between MM. Macron and Xi, said the Elysée, reporting the vigilance of the French head of state around “the accumulation of tensions in the region” which could lead “to an accident”.
“We will become vassals”
Pleading for “strategic autonomy” to be “Europe’s fight”, Mr. Macron also warns in Les Echos against “accelerating the conflagration of the duopoly” China – United States, at the risk of not no longer have “the time or 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. And to continue:
“The paradox would be that when we put in place the elements of a real European strategic autonomy, we began to follow American policy, by a sort of reflex of panic. »
The French head of state also congratulated himself on having “won the ideological battle” within the EU, whereas “five years ago it was said that European sovereignty did not exist”. Finally, Emmanuel Macron pleaded to “strengthen our defense industry” and “accelerate the battle for nuclear and renewables” on the continent.