A communication disaster, except of course for China, which exults: this is how Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to China ended. The damage is compounded by discrepancies between different versions of the interview given to reporters on the way home. Did the president speak of Europe as “a third pole”, a “third power” or even of “Europe power”? Did he criticize the American “pace”, the “American agenda” or the “American action” which would have provoked “a Chinese overreaction”? In any case, from this interview, previous remarks made on Chinese soil and an inexhaustible joint press release with Xi Jinping, we are forced to draw certain conclusions.
First, an irresistible penchant for the “at the same time” and for stagings inherited from the past. Massive delegation of businessmen when Ukraine was announced as the essential subject, long moments of “intimacy” with Xi Jinping against a background of tea and Chinese music, walkabout with students apparently as enthusiastic as in North Korea: the Elysée has the wrong era and register. “At the same time”, the association with the trip of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, made all the more sense as China evades real negotiations with the Commission, and divides as much as it can the Member States.
Alas, the gap seemed wider between European analysis and the personal ruminations of a president who quotes the Stoics to make it clear that he is leaving Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China, and Gramsci to claim he has won “the battle ideology of European strategic autonomy”, no less. The idea will appeal to Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, long believers in the ideological manipulation of language and law.
Atavistic pseudo-realism in French history
In the meantime, Mrs von der Leyen, she at least recalled the European opposition to any change of status by force in the Taiwan Strait. All of the president’s miscellaneous remarks about Taiwan were aimed at the United States, not China: they act, China reacts. This after a decade, under Xi Jinping, of direct military pressure around the island and demonization of a Taiwanese president who has not once departed from her calm and her prudence. But also because the president goes on to denounce the American “sanctions” and the “extraterritoriality of the dollar”, which are so far the best substitutes for a direct conflict – whether with Iran, Russia or potentially China. . He affirms in advance that he will do nothing on Taiwan, taxing the others with “beautiful souls”: an atavistic pseudo-realism in French history, but how can this be made to fit in with the peans of a powerful Europe?
There is a worse symbol in the joint communiqué: point 51, where the two heads of state proclaim the importance of “the promotion and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”. There, we are no longer in the Stoics, but in the school of cynicism. With Macron having left Chinese airspace, China was launching a military intimidation exercise around Taiwan, a mockery of a potential blockade. And two Chinese human rights lawyers, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, were sentenced to long prison terms.
In both cases, France kicked the ass. Because if the president is so keen to avoid an effectively catastrophic conflict, should he really give a blank check to the People’s Republic of China in advance, concentrate his criticisms against the United States on the way back and appear as the chief a “ni-ni” Europe? Should we proclaim this “third way” which itches official France since the loss of the Australian submarine contract? To dissuade the People’s Republic of China from engaging in a conflict, isn’t that first of all to make Xi Jinping understand that in this case there would be a joint political reaction of the great democracies – the term seems taboo for the president – instead of to imply that Europe would remain absent subscribers? Can Emmanuel Macron argue that the United States is promoting a conflict in East Asia whose repercussions on the rest of the world would be immense?
Let us pass over strange contradictions: thus, on the plane, the president claims to have been “the only one”, five years ago, to evoke the dangers of an excessively strong foreign presence in telecommunications, and to have effectively reduced this presence. But the joint statement commits France, in the digital economy and 5G, to “pursue the fair and non-discriminatory treatment of license applications from Chinese companies”. Double talk.
Chinese propaganda rejoices
We touch here on two essential points. Emmanuel Macron abuses the “at the same time”, and seems to imagine that he will lead Europe and make turns edge to edge without damage with our partners, Europeans, Americans or even Chinese. It is all the more striking that one of the versions of his interview shows a president lucid on “our” limits, whether French or European. The Elysée implies that the president went further in his observations and criticisms with Xi Jinping. But whether on Ukraine or Taiwan, the latter firmly rejected any variation on his line. And Chinese propaganda was unleashed against Mrs. von der Leyen, an American agent, while celebrating what is the Gaullo-chevénementist resurrection of a France in reality alone.
The other point is the silence of the French political class (except Fabien Roussel, very critical of the trip!). This is a growing atrophy of the foreign policy debate in France. The accumulation of internal crises and of our dependence, a political life dominated by rancor and often xenophobic phobias, the political attractiveness of non-intervention and withdrawal into ourselves are doing their work. Both political extremes would no doubt do and say worse than the president. And also: Beijing proclaims the coming American “decline”, but we tremble before the advances of the new American economy.
Of course, of course, the Head of State will change his footing. This is often the case, and it would be surprising if China did not pick it up. Moreover, Ms. von der Leyen finally also met Xi Jinping alone. The visit of the French president constitutes an important stage victory for China, which will not stop there. It will be important to see whether it expands this breakthrough to ensure effective European neutrality, conveniently sheltered behind the pursuit of strategic autonomy. Or if the European Union – here too, the President preferred to quote the Council rather than the Commission manages to affirm a path free from presidential slippages.