Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday in Beijing that China could “play a major role” to “find a path of peace” in Ukraine, at the start of a visit to the communist country. China, “strong in its close relationship with Russia, further reaffirmed in recent days” with the Chinese president’s recent state visit to Moscow, can “play a major role” in resolving the conflict, he said. estimated. The “dialogue” with the Beijing authorities is therefore “indispensable”.
“China has precisely proposed a peace plan (…) It is indeed a question of a desire to have a responsibility and to try to build a path towards peace”, declared the French president in front of the community of his fellow citizens, whose “remarkable courage” he praised after the long restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, lifted only at the end of the year.
Get out of a logic of confrontation
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, never formally condemned by Beijing, is at the top of the issues he intends to address Thursday during an intense series of discussions with Xi Jinping. “This war, which on several occasions I have qualified as imperialist, colonial, has in fact trampled on many of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which the two members of the Security Council that we are must resolutely defend,” he said of France and China. “I believe that defending them also means walking together and trying to find a path of peace,” added President Macron.
The French head of state, who had not returned to China since 2019 due to the health crisis, wanted to distance himself from an approach tinged with confrontation adopted in recent years by the United States with regard to their Asian rival. And of a form of fatality. “Increasingly, we are hearing voices of strong concern about the future of relations between the West and China. And somehow conclude with a form of irresistible spiral of growing tensions, ”he lamented. “I do not want to believe in this scenario”, he immediately hammered.
Accompanied by Ursula von der Leyen
To show Europe’s unity on this position of “commitment”, he asked the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to accompany him on Thursday for one of his talks with Xi Jinping. Surrounded by an imposing assembly of more than 50 French business leaders, including those of Airbus, EDF and Veolia, Macron felt that France and the European Union should not “separate” from China on the plan. economic, but maintain a “realistic and ambitious path”.
After the distancing due to the Covid, Paris is therefore betting on “reconnection” at all levels with this three-day state visit, which will take it to Canton (South) on Friday. In the evening, Emmanuel Macron insisted on cultural ties by inaugurating the Franco-Chinese festival “Croisements”. He is accompanied by director Jean-Jacques Annaud, musician Jean-Michel Jarre and, on the Chinese side, by actress Gong Li and painter Yan Pei-ming.
Until recently, France did not hide its hope of seeing the Chinese president play mediator between Ukraine and Russia and use his influence with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to convince him to resolve to peace negotiations. Since then, events have disappointed these expectations: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have renewed their alliance in the guise of an anti-Western front. Several capitals, starting with Washington, fear that China will end up supplying arms to Russia.
