The world is counting on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to “bring Russia to reason” over Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Beijing on Thursday, amid an elaborate show of hospitality designed to prevent Europe from siding with the United States in diplomatic hostilities.
Macron’s comments, some of the most positive from a Western leader in response to China’s proposals over the Ukraine war, stand in stark contrast to American political rhetoric and are a win for Xi, who has tried to present himself as a neutral party and honest broker, despite a burgeoning partnership with Russia.
“The Russian aggression in Ukraine has dealt a blow to [international] stability,” Macron said before meeting with Xi in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. “I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table.”
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Macron earlier told the French community in Beijing that he does not believe in an “irresistible spiral” dragging down China’s relations with the West, and defended as essential dialogue with Beijing over the war in Ukraine.
The French president appears to be currying favor in the world’s second-largest economy, and is traveling with a delegation of major French businesses, including plane manufacturer Airbus, high-speed rail maker Alstom and EDF, the energy group.
For his part, Xi reiterated that Beijing was willing to work with France and call on the international community to “avoid taking actions that would further worsen the crisis or cause it to spiral out of control,” according to Chinese state media.
Xi used a trip to Moscow last month to burnish his close partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although there was no visible progress on China’s 12-point cease-fire plan for Ukraine. Nor has the Chinese leader called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as he was reportedly planning to do after meeting with Putin.
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The United States, in contrast, has repeatedly voiced concern that Beijing is already providing Moscow with “diplomatic cover” and an economic lifeline — and may now be considering “lethal” support.
Xi also obliquely referred to the United States. China’s relations with the E.U. are “not targeted at, dependent on or controlled by a third party,” he said, according to an official readout.
On his first visit since 2019, Macron has been treated to all the trappings of Chinese diplomatic ceremony and courtship upon his arrival in Beijing.
He was welcomed with a 21-gun salute at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, before going into meetings with the newly appointed Chinese premier, Li Qiang and then with Xi. Xi will host a state dinner for Macron on Thursday night.
The footage of Macron and Xi together in Beijing is all the more loaded given that the Chinese leader has not agreed to President Biden’s repeated requests over the past few weeks to talk on the phone.
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Then Macron will travel to Guangzhou, were he is set to have a private dinner with Xi in the southern city where Xi’s father once led economic reforms to reopen China to the world.
Accompanying foreign leaders on trips within China is a diplomatic nicety Xi deploys only occasionally, such as when he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Xi’an in 2015. For Beijing, visiting the cradle of economic reform is a display of willingness to trade as Xi maneuvers to entice European leaders away from siding with the United States in a budding superpower standoff.
China’s state broadcaster has played up Macron’s decision to come to Beijing without waiting for Xi to travel to Paris first as a demonstration that Europe needs China. Macron’s arrival on the heels of a trip last week by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was cited as evidence that Beijing was becoming the world’s “waiting room,” filled with eager visitors.
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“China needs Europe very much now, and Europe also very much needs China,” said Song Luzheng, a researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai. “The United States clearly reasons that China is its number one opponent, and China needs any power that can counterbalance the United States.”
“As for Europe, at least it is not willing to decouple with China, and believes that Russia is the number one threat, and China is not,” he added.
China’s recently appointed ambassador to the European Union, Fu Cong, has focused his first months in office on selling China as a reliable trade partner and a neutral part in the Ukraine war. Fu has adopted a far less critical tone than many other Chinese diplomats, telling the New York Times this week that previous descriptions of the China-Russia relationship as having “no limits” was “nothing but rhetoric.”
Compared to other European leaders, Macron has been among the most receptive to China’s 12-point plan for a political settlement of the Ukraine war, saying that he doesn’t agree with everything in the proposal but believes it shows Beijing is trying to “build a pathway to peace.”
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Beijing was less thrilled about Macron’s traveling mate: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who last week gave a strongly worded speech detailing the need to recognize Chinese aggression. She said Europe needed to face up to China’s authoritarian trajectory, including its refusal to condemn Russia’s “atrocious and illegal” invasion of Ukraine.
While state media noted Xi had invited Macron, it did not say the same invitation had been extended to von der Leyen. Chinese scholars interpreted that distinction as a snub.
“We shouldn’t forget that it was after von der Leyen took office that China-E. U. relations have become … the most tense and complicated they have ever been,” Ding Yifan, a researcher at Beijing-based Taihe Institute, a think tank, told Phoenix TV this week.
Von der Leyen took a back seat to Macron on Thursday, only making brief public remarks ahead of a meeting with Premier Li about the need for frank discussions about a relationship that had “become more complex in the recent years.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have strengthened security ties between the United States and Europe, but some Chinese observers believe the war has created new tension in the transatlantic economic relationship that leaves an opening for Beijing to draw Europe closer.
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China is increasingly positioning itself as ready to help with the European energy crisis. Already a major exporter of solar panels and wind turbines, it has ambitions to provide underlying technologies for nuclear power plants abroad.
Europe states, meanwhile, are still trying to find a coordinated strategy for dealing with China. In recent months, visits to Beijing by European leaders — including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Council President Charles Michel and Sánchez — have each struck a slightly different tone.
This has highlighted how the bloc is still very much feeling its way toward a China strategy amid pressure from the United States.
“After von der Leyen’s address last week, the challenge of singing from the same song sheet has grown,” wrote Noah Barkin, a senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in his newsletter, “Watching China in Europe.”
Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine has in some ways restored a transatlantic partnership that was damaged by former president Donald Trump.
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But not everyone in Europe is convinced of the need to adopt a more assertive stance on China. Many Europeans are hesitant to pick a side between Washington and Beijing, opting to see both bilateral and E.U.-China ties through the prism of trade, not great power competition.
Beijing is sensitive to those cracks in European unity. It has singled out France in particular as the focus of a charm offensive in European capitals, with Chinese scholars highlighting difficulties in Paris’s relationship with both Berlin and Washington.
Macron’s continued efforts to negotiate with Russia and his bid to be the leader of the E.U. make him a promising partner for Beijing, Shanghai-based scholars Zhang Ji and Xue Sheng wrote in a recent essay. “Although there are still concerns in France about our country’s increasing [global] role, China’s support is essential if France wants to exercise its soft power in global governance,” the two wrote, as translated by the Sinification substack.
Theodora Yu in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
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