French President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-day state visit to China on Wednesday, where he will discuss the war in Ukraine and bilateral economic relations with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
“President Xi Jinping will meet with [Macron] to jointly plan and lead the future development of Sino-French relations and deepen cooperation with France and Europe in various fields,” Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday.
“They will exchange in-depth views on key international and regional issues,” he added.
Macron’s trip ends with a visit to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in southeast China.
“The presidents of France and China will hold extensive discussions on the war in Ukraine, with a view to working to restore peace and respect for international law, in particular Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the French president’s office said. , it’s a statement.
Macron’s trip coincides with a visit to China by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and follows a visit to the Asian country by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was also in Beijing last November.
Analysts quoted by the official Chinese press considered that the visits of European leaders to Beijing illustrate the recognition of the importance of the Asian country as a “promoter of peace.”
China’s “international dispute resolution model” is “widely recognized” by the international community and the visit of European leaders to the country “reflects Europe’s eagerness” to reach a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, which “deeply worries to the mainland”. wrote the Global Times, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, based on statements by Chinese analysts.
Xi has openly called for a greater role for China in solving international problems. In a triumph for the Chinese leader, Iran and Saudi Arabia announced, last month, in Beijing, an agreement to restore diplomatic relations, broken by Riyadh in 2016.
“China is entering the ocean,” retired Chinese colonel Zhou Bo said metaphorically in an interview with Time magazine. “There is no way back”.
The visits by European leaders come just weeks after Xi met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“If there is only one country that can make Moscow change its calculations, it is China,” an official from Macron’s office admitted on Monday, quoted by the British newspaper Financial Times.
In a telephone conversation with the diplomatic adviser to the French president, Emmanuel Bonne, after Xi’s visit to Moscow, the head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, defended that China and Europe should reach a “strategic consensus” to promote a halt fire and a political agreement. resolution of the war.
Beijing has presented a peace proposal, which has been criticized in Europe and the United States for failing to demand the withdrawal of Russian troops and ignoring Kiev’s claims to sovereignty in the occupied territories.
Last week, in a debate in the European Parliament, Ursula von der Leyen said that Xi’s visit to Moscow was an “absolute reminder” of Beijing’s overall goals.
The European leader rejected China’s peace proposals in Ukraine, but stressed that “China has a responsibility to play a constructive role in advancing a just peace.”
“Far from being dejected by the heinous and illegal invasion of Ukraine, President Xi maintains his ‘unlimited friendship’ with Putin’s Russia,” he said.
Ursula von der Leyen recalled that “the way China continues to interact with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations to move forward.”
Quoted by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, southwest China’s Sichuan University professor of international relations Pang Zhongying said Macron and von der Leyen will continue to urge China to exert its influence on Russia to end the war, emphasizing common ground. ground with Beijing on the need to respect territorial integrity and condemn threats to use nuclear force.
“If China does not use its relationship with Russia, it will be difficult for Western leaders to believe in their peace plan or talk about a political settlement,” Pang said.
Economic issues will also be at the top of the visit’s agenda. The European Commission president said the bloc should consider restricting investment by European companies in China in sensitive sectors such as robotics, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
“President Macron also intends to defend the interests of French companies and ensure that a balanced relationship with China benefits French companies and consumers,” the statement from the French president’s office read.
The French leader will be joined by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, and the leaders of some 50 companies, including nuclear power group EDF and water and waste group Veolia.
The construction company Airbus is also part of the delegation, at a time when it is negotiating a contract to supply aircraft to China.
China is the third largest destination for EU exports and the largest supplier of EU imports.
Von der Leyen also visited Washington in early March to discuss cooperation on raw materials, with the aim of reducing the EU’s dependence on China. Almost all the rare earths in Europe come from China.
Source: TSF
