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EU chief’s sharp speech on China sets up ‘uncomfortable’ meeting with Xi, as Macron faces domestic, global balancing act: Analysts

Ukraine, Taiwan, trade and technology, and climate change will be on the agenda, as French president Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week.

EU chief’s sharp speech on China sets up ‘uncomfortable’ meeting with Xi, as Macron faces domestic, global balancing act: Analysts
French president Emmanuel Macron (left) and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (right) will focus on presenting a united European front in Beijing. (Photo: AFP/Ludovic MARIN)

PARIS: As two top European leaders meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, they will be focused on presenting a united European front in the face of Beijing’s efforts to divide the bloc.

French president Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will likely try seeking common ground with China on issues such as culture and the climate.

The duo will visit China from Apr 5 to Apr 8, with Ukraine, Taiwan, trade and technology, and climate change on the agenda. It will be the first trip to China for Mr Macron since 2019, and Ms von der Leyen's first official visit.

However, experts have doubts over whether anything concrete will emerge from the meeting, in part due to the nature of a speech by Ms von der Leyen last week.

Speaking to the Mercator Institute for China Studies and the European Policy Centre in Brussels, she had called relations between the European Union (EU) and China “more distant and more difficult in the last few years”.

She noted a “very deliberate hardening of China's overall strategic posture”, along with a “ratcheting up of increasingly assertive actions”, and that President Xi’s recent visit to Moscow showed that Beijing has not been “put off by the atrocious and illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

DECOUPLING OF ISSUES

One of the best possible outcomes of the meeting would be for both sides to decouple softer issues, such as cultural ties, from the ongoing geopolitical tensions, Dr Pushan Dutt, Professor of Economics and Political Science at INSEAD told CNA938 on Monday (Apr 3).

This would help to cool down tensions between both sides, he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) last met at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia last November. (Photo: POOL/AFP/File/Ludovic MARIN)

“I think one of the best things that can happen is a decoupling of these issues where you have economic and cultural ties, and then you have these geopolitical issues,” said Dr Dutt, noting that the meeting will likely not produce “anything concrete except for some big promises”.

While there are challenges to that separation, any progress made on cultural or business matters will help reduce tensions on other fronts, he said.

“Progress on one of these fronts, on at least the cultural matters (and) on the business matters … will help reduce some of the high temperatures that we are seeing, whether it comes to Taiwan, whether it comes to China's unlimited partnership with Russia,” he said.

DANCE OF DIPLOMACY

Dr Dutt said he was “very puzzled” by the timing of Ms von der Leyen’s speech on EU-China relations.

The upcoming meeting is supposed to foster diplomacy, but the EU chief’s sharp speech has kicked things off “in a very undiplomatic way”, he noted.

In her speech, Ms von der Leyen had said that China has ramped up policies of disinformation, that it is using economics and trade in a coercive manner, and lamented issues regarding political and civil rights.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. (File Photo: AFP/Valeria Mongelli)

“We all understand that there are thorny issues in this relationship and that this is complicated, but highlighting them explicitly immediately before departure and making them more salient is not going to be helpful,” said Dr Dutt.

As such, he said the expectations for the meeting is now “very low”, and the tone will be “stilted” and “uncomfortable”.

“But in the short term, what matters is that the lines of communication remain open between the European Union and China,” he noted.

In the longer term, the relationship could help avoid “a conflict between rising powers and established powers”, if cooler heads prevail, added Dr Dutt.

Dr Dutt also noted that President Macron has “a very delicate balancing act” as he faces both domestic and global issues.

French President Emmanuel Macron. (Aurelien Morissard/Pool via REUTERS)

“He's facing riots and protests at home over pension reforms, but he also wants to further his image and role as a global statesman, that he's sort of like this bridge between the west and China,” he said.

Mr Macron had tried to do the same thing after Russia invaded Ukraine, continuing a series of calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep the communication lines open.

That proved “quite ineffectual” and only served to delay Ukrainian aid by months, said Dr Dutt.

“In this case, I think he's playing more of a long-term game. That's why he's not just talking about business ties, but he's also thinking about cultural ties, to use the soft power of France to actually make sure that the possibility of conflict remains minimum,” he said.

EU STANCE TOWARDS CHINA

The visit by the European duo is an attempt to show that there is unity within the EU over its China policy, said Dr Jean-Philippe Beja from the Centre for International Studies at Sciences Po university.

“China has been trying to divide the European front and the European Union. So what I think is that they are going to try to present a united front to show that Europe is itself a great power, and that as a great power it has its own foreign policy and its policy towards China,” he said.

Dr Beja identified the war in Ukraine as a topic that will feature heavily in the discussions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) on his recent visit to Moscow. (Photo: SPUTNIK/AFP/Vladimir ASTAPKOVICH)

President Macron has previously argued that his Chinese counterpart President Xi should use his influence with the Kremlin to push Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine.

His position has been echoed by Ms von der Leyen, who said last week that “how China interacts with Putin’s war will be the defining factor of EU-China relations”.

“Of course, what you can say is ‘we do support Chinese efforts to have political negotiations’, but you have to recognise that there has been an aggression, so this I think will be the essence of the talks,” said Dr Beja.

Ms von der Leyen had signalled previously that there could be opportunities for alignment between the two sides on dealing with climate change, protecting biodiversity, reducing plastic use and increasing renewable energy output, saying that China has been an active player in global environmental policy.

Source: CNA/fk(ca)

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