Macron visits China: Ukraine additionally turns into a subject of dialog | EUROtoday

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beijing on Wednesday accompanied by his spouse Brigitte for his fourth state go to. “For three days we will exchange ideas with President Xi about peace and a return to economic balance,” Macron wrote upon his arrival on the X platform.

In Paris it’s mentioned that the journey was carefully coordinated with Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), as there are a variety of points resembling China’s function within the Ukraine warfare and the commerce disputes, the place shut German-French coordination is necessary. Merz initially wished to go to China earlier than Macron; After some irritation, the journey is now solely deliberate for the start of 2026.

Unlike Macron’s journey to China two and a half years in the past, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is just not accompanying the president this time. At that point, she was made conscious by the Chinese aspect that she didn’t benefit from the standing of head of state.

But there are additionally substantive causes: The Élysée Palace fears that the softening of the 2035 goal date for the combustion engine ban will result in the European electrical automobile trade falling even additional behind the Chinese one. “We must not allow ourselves to create flexibilities from which only Chinese manufacturers and suppliers benefit,” it mentioned in Paris.

Macron campaigned within the EU final 12 months to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese electrical automobiles. The journey additionally goals to melt the Chinese response to tariffs, resembling minimal value targets for French cognac producers and import restrictions on milk and pork. Other delicate factors embody the Chinese necessities for the supply of uncommon earths. Macron is urging the EU to make use of its hardest commerce instruments in response.

After a go to to the Forbidden City, the previous imperial palace in Beijing, to kick off the three-day go to, Macron will meet for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. The Frenchman needs to attempt once more to influence Beijing to place strain on Moscow within the present negotiations on the Ukraine warfare.

So far, he has needed to be content material with guarantees with out Beijing utilizing its commerce relations with Russia as a way of strain. After his current dialog with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, Merz additionally expressed the hope that China would put extra strain on Russia to finish the warfare in Ukraine.

While Macron drew anger from Western allies throughout his go to in 2023 when he advocated not blindly following Washington’s China coverage within the title of strategic autonomy, his method is now receiving extra approval within the EU. But China can be attempting to interpret the idea of strategic autonomy in its favor.

Beijing requested for Paris assist within the current dispute with Japan over the standing of Taiwan. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had hinted at doable army involvement in a battle over Taiwan. So far, Macron has not made a public assertion.

Macron can be accompanied by a enterprise delegation together with the heads of Airbus, EDF and Danone. France now has a commerce deficit of 47 billion euros with China. In the Élysée Palace it’s talked about that Germany, for the primary time, imported extra from China than it delivered to the nation. Several Franco-Chinese financial agreements are as a result of be signed this Thursday, together with on transport and power.

Xi devotes an unusually massive period of time to Macron and travels with him to Chengdu, the house of the Chinese panda. At the tip of November, the 2 big pandas Huan Huan (“the cheerful one”) and Yuan Zi (“chubby”) have been flown again to Chengdu from Beauval Zoo after 13 years within the French host nation. There was a media-wide farewell ceremony.

China makes use of the “borrowed” pandas as a diplomatic device to acknowledge notably valued nations. The big pandas’ offspring will stay in France in the interim. Zoo director Rodolphe Delord is touring with Macron’s delegation.

But you do not wish to depend on panda diplomacy alone to create a very good environment. The French President is accompanied by the brothers Alexis and Félix Lebrun, who, with their desk tennis expertise, turned France right into a nation of ping-pong lovers within the 2024 Olympic summer season.

In China, desk tennis is a nationwide sport anyway. Macron can be contemplating inviting Xi to the 2026 G-7 summit in Évian on Lake Geneva in France. In addition to Xi, Macron will even meet different senior politicians, together with Prime Minister Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.