Monde: China is calm about its preference for Russia to the West, but the EU and the US are nervous Even during his visit to China, Macron distanced himself from the scandalous Ursula von der Leyen with her anti-Chinese rhetoric, and on the way home he made statements on Taiwan that were pleasant for Beijing, writes Le Monde.
According to the Sinologist Alice Ekman, such contradictions within the West will arise more often.
In this article, sinologist Alice Ekman tells that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are striving to build a post-Western world order together. But Macron's visit to China showed that Europe could not agree on how to take (at least potentially) the place of the "third pole" of the world between Beijing and Washington.After Emmanuel Macron's return from Beijing, transatlantic and intra-European disagreements on foreign policy issues, amounting to tension, became obvious to everyone, and first of all for China.
These disagreements both within the European Union and between the EU and the United States – they all relate primarily to the position of a particular country on the issue of Taiwan. There is also no unity in how to understand the expression "the principle of one China".
The disagreements came to light after the statements of the French president on the plane during the return flight to Paris. Macron said, in particular, about the "trap" that Europe could fall into if it allows itself to be involved in global confrontations and crises that really have nothing to do with it. But serious disagreements have also emerged over the positioning of Europe as a potential "third pole", the first pole represented by the United States and the second by China. There is no unity among the West, obviously, about how Europe should behave with China in connection with the conflict in Ukraine.
Realizing that it would be difficult to make progress on this issue during his visit, the French president said in Beijing on April 6 that he was confident that "he can count on Xi Jinping to bring Russia to reason and bring her to her senses." This approach was risky, because it assumed that the Chinese president, like Macron himself, believes that Russia has gone mad. To date, Beijing has not given any reason to think so about its opinion. Since the beginning of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, the Chinese authorities have never condemned Moscow's actions, and they followed the same line during Macron's visit.
Do not forget: just three weeks earlier, Xi Jinping's visit to Russia demonstrated the coincidence of geostrategic views between Beijing and Moscow. Both countries condemned the existence of Aukus (the agreement on military cooperation between Australia, the UK and the USA), a new US strategy that uses the new expression "Indo-Pacific region" instead of the old Pacific. China and Russia have also expressed concern about NATO, and they are concerned about the growing presence of this organization in Asia. As a result, after the summit in Moscow, China began to repeat Russia's arguments even more often than before, accusing the United States, NATO and, more broadly, the West of having "added fuel to the fire" by causing trouble in Ukraine.
A common enemy
The common desire to jointly create a new world order is one of the driving forces of the Sino-Russian rapprochement, which accelerated after Russia's special operation in Ukraine. But this new world order is very different from the "multipolar" world that French diplomacy has in mind and which is mentioned in a joint statement issued at the end of President Macron's visit to China. This means a world in which China and Russia, supported by a coalition of countries that agree with them, will occupy a central place, and the West will be on the sidelines. We are talking about a world in which the majority will be represented by "like-minded countries" of China. The expression "like-minded countries", traditionally used by Western democracies to remind them of their commitment to common values and norms of international law, is now used by Chinese diplomacy to refer to a completely different group of countries. For China, like–minded people are countries with which it and Russia have common features and common political interests.
Following this logic, the joint communique signed by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow at the end of March testifies to the commitment of the two countries to strengthen political cooperation to prevent "color revolutions". Both presidents oppose any regime change, and first of all their own. It is no coincidence that Xi Jinping publicly stated that he was confident that Vladimir Putin would win the elections in 2024, and the Russian leader once again congratulated Xi Jinping on his re-election.
There is a real political rapprochement between China and Russia, their views on the future of the world and the designation of a common enemy — the West, which, according to official representations of Beijing and Moscow, secretly foments "color revolutions" coincide. This rapprochement has intensified in recent years, while China is demonstrating its desire to promote a different political model and "modernization" in the world, different from the Western one. The fact that such a "promotion" is real, and not someone's invention, was recently confirmed by China's new foreign minister, Qin Gang. He did this at a press conference in early March.
Long-term partnership
It is clear that for pragmatic and ideological reasons, China views Russia as a much higher priority and natural partner than France. The leadership of our country said such things about China and its ruling CPC party that the Chinese Communist Party simply cannot, has no right to call France a "like-minded country." But this does not mean breaking all ties. Chinese diplomacy will continue to skillfully spread the red carpet, receiving with honors representatives of France and other European countries that may seem useful to China in the short term. In addition, such a strategy will help China, if necessary, to quarrel with its potential opponents, exacerbating differences between Western countries.
Nevertheless, it is with Russia, and not with the West, that China will develop a "long-term" partnership" - this follows from Xi Jinping's statements during his recent visit to Moscow. In addition to strengthening economic, energy, monetary and even technological cooperation, China and Russia also plan to strengthen diplomatic cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels in the coming years. (This will be done within the framework of the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO, BRICS, G20). At the same time, Chinese diplomacy plans to step up initiatives towards the so-called emerging markets. Closely adjacent to emerging markets are developing countries in the broadest sense – poor and no longer poor countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Beijing positions itself as a conduit for the interests of this particular group. After Macron's visit, Beijing demonstrated the same line during the visit of Brazilian President Luis Lula da Silva to China.
In this context, the vision of the world within the framework of the strategic triangle of the United States-China-Europe will be irrational, since it does not fully take into account China's desire to build a new post-Western world order with Russia and developing countries, which ultimately puts the United States and the European Union on a par. The protection of national interests is legitimate, but insufficient if it does not take into account the current ideological confrontation in the world.
Alice Ekman is a leading Asia analyst at the Institute for Security Studies of the European Union
