Emmanuel Macron accused of China ‘appeasement’ over ‘ill-conceived’ Taiwan remarks:

Mike Pompeo has lashed out at Emmanuel Macron for his claims that Europe should stay out of the feud with China over Taiwan.

The Trump-era secretary of state denounced the French leader’s claims that the EU should not take sides in the long-running feud over who controls the island.

“The best way to respond to China’s provocation is to recognize Taiwan as the free and sovereign country it is,” the former CIA director said. “Never give an inch.”

Pompeo, who served as the 70th Secretary of State of the United States from 2018 to 2021, is reportedly considering running for the White House.

His comments came after Macron’s much-criticized interview with several French media outlets, in which he suggested Europe should not get involved in the spat.

“We don’t want to get caught up in a bloc-against-bloc logic,” Macron said in an interview for French business daily Les Echo, arguing that Europe “must not get caught up in world disruptions and crises that are not ours.” are. .’

“The worst thing we Europeans can do is be followers of this subject and adapt to the American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction,” he said. “Why should we go to a beat chosen by someone else?”

Those remarks were made to a select group of journalists as he returned from a three-day state visit to China.

China regards democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

The government of Taiwan, which enjoys security guarantees from the US, strongly objects to China’s claims.

China’s military had declared it “ready to fight” earlier on Monday after three days of large-scale combat exercises simulating the lockdown of the island.

The exercises came in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s trip to the US last week when she met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

Macron’s interview sparked anger on both sides of the Atlantic as lawmakers were outraged by his soft stance on the China-Taiwan issue

The German lawmaker, who is close to former leader Angela Merkel, denounced the French president during his trip to Beijing, calling it “a PR coup” for the Chinese regime

German MP Norbert Roettgen said Macron had “managed to turn his trip to China into a PR coup for Xi and a foreign policy disaster for Europe.”

The influential conservative lawmaker, who sits on Germany’s parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, said he was “increasingly isolating himself in Europe.

It is the latest foreign policy blunder from the 45-year-old French head of state, who has warned Russia should not “humiliate” itself in future peace talks over Ukraine.

But his conciliatory Chinese stance also angered diplomats and lawmakers in the United States, the largest provider of Western aid to Ukraine.

Nathan Sales, a former acting secretary of state under Donald Trump’s presidency, said the French position could damage ties with its Western allies.

“Xi Jinping would love nothing more than to split up the transatlantic alliance, and President Macron’s ill-conceived remarks open the door to just that,” he told DailyMail.com.

Macron seems out of touch, not only with the United States, but also with the rest of Europe.

“Especially in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, Europeans understand the importance of American leadership and recognize that a world led by an authoritarian power like Beijing would be hostile to European values,” he added.

Republican Mike Gallagher, who has represented Wisconsin’s 8th congressional district since 2017, said the comments were “shameful” and outrageous.

“This is a huge propaganda victory for the Chinese Communist Party,” he told Fox News.

“The irony and the tragedy is that it actually makes war over the Taiwan Strait more likely,” the congressman added.

Marco Rubio, the Republican senator representing Florida, took to social media to lash out at the French leader, accusing him of undermining ties with the United States.

“Maybe we shouldn’t take sides either. In fact, maybe we should say we’re going to focus on Taiwan and the threats China poses and you deal with Ukraine and Europe,” the 51-year-old 2016 presidential candidate added.

Nile Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation think tank, denounced Macron for “acting like Beijing’s useful idiot.” ‘

“His reconciliation with China is an embarrassment to France,” he said.

Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to NATO under the Obama administration, said Macron was a hypocrite because “he can easily rely on US security commitments to deal with crises like Ukraine in Europe.”

But the White House tried to diffuse the row, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying the Biden administration “remains at ease and confident in the great bilateral relationship we have with France.”

Deputy French ambassador to the US Aurelie Bonal stressed that “France and Europe will always be the closest allies and partners of the US.”

“France’s position on Taiwan has not changed,” she wrote on Twitter.