Taipei, Taiwan – French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will arrive in China on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, where they will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Macron will be accompanied by a delegation of more than 50 CEOs and meet with French business, but all eyes will be on how he and von der Leyen discuss the war in Ukraine with Chinese leaders.
“The main point Macron and von der Leyen will probably want to address is to get some support from China in dealing with Russia and make progress on that front,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an associate research fellow at the Swedish Institute for Security. and Development Policy, Al Jazeera told.
“Realistically, I don’t think we can expect much, but I think everyone clearly agrees that’s the priority.”
China is officially neutral in the war, but has supported Russia economically and diplomatically despite Western sanctions. Xi also has the ear of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he shares a close friendship spanning more than a decade. In March, the duo signed a Sino-Russian strategic partnership during Xi’s state visit to Moscow.
At the G20 summit in November, Macron called on China to play a “greater mediating role” in the war, but Beijing has yet to develop its role beyond issuing a 12-point peace plan that has received a lukewarm response in Kiev and Western Capitals.
Macron’s trip is his first trip to China since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, when Beijing effectively closed its borders to travel. The French leader last visited the country in 2019.
His journey follows that of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in November, but it has already taken on a different tone.
Scholz’s trip was widely criticized in Europe as being too conciliatory towards Beijing, with the German leader’s efforts to bolster the country’s business interests taking precedence over forcing China to come to the negotiating table over Ukraine.
This time, however, Xi can expect backlash.
Macron and US President Joe Biden agreed in a phone call ahead of the French leader’s trip to enlist China to hasten the end of the war in Ukraine, the Elysee Palace said Wednesday.
“The two leaders have expressed their shared willingness to engage China to hasten the end of the war in Ukraine and participate in building lasting peace in the region,” Macron’s office said in a statement.
Speaking in Brussels last week, von der Leyen openly criticized Beijing’s “no borders” ties with Moscow in the face of a “heinous and illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
“Any peace plan that would effectively consolidate Russian annexations is simply not a viable plan. We have to be honest on this point,” von der Leyen said, also referring to China’s increasingly assertive stance on the South China Sea, Sino-Indian border and Taiwan.
“How China continues to deal with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for future EU-China relations,” she said.
Beijing said it was “disappointed” by her speech, according to European Union ambassador Fu Cong.
Against such a tense backdrop, Macron is expected to ask China not to supply Russia with weapons. Beijing is not known to have supplied arms to Russia despite requests from Moscow, though US officials have warned of the possibility.
Macron’s journey is unlikely to be a turning point, but his diplomacy could yield victories for European security later on, said Matthieu Duchâtel, the director of international studies at France’s Institut Montaigne.
“It’s really about moving it a little bit in a positive direction and not harboring the unrealistic expectation that China can mediate,” Duchâtel told Al Jazeera, describing the European view of China as a “swing state” in the war in Ukraine.
If China supplied Russia with arms, it could tip the scales in Moscow’s favor as the war continues, Duchâtel said, while the opposite would be true if Beijing were to lean towards Ukraine.
Macron will have to play a cautious game, said Antoine Bondaz, a researcher at the French think tank La Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique. A poorly worded statement could inadvertently signal support for Beijing’s position and win a victory for the Chinese Communist Party, he said, rather than impressing China with the dangers the war poses to European security.
However, one point of cooperation could be the issue of nuclear weapons, Bondaz added.
France, like China, is a nuclear power, but does not participate in NATO nuclear exercises. Both are also against sharing nuclear technology, Bondaz said, meaning France is in a “legitimate” position to “ask China for an official response to Russia’s announcement of its intention to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus in and to try to prevent such an attack.” stake.”
Whether Macron can achieve these goals will depend on whether China fears further sanctions from the EU and the risk of deepening “transatlantic coordination” between Europe and the US on issues such as Ukraine, he added.
Some analysts think Xi could try to drive a wedge between the US and Europe, the latter of which traditionally takes a less aggressive approach to bilateral relations.
Despite being a founding member of NATO, France is not part of US-led security blocs such as AUKUS – made up of Australia, the UK and the US – and the QUAD – with Australia, India, Japan and the US – both of which are widely seen as aimed at countering China.
Yet relations between the EU and China have deteriorated sharply in recent years.
Aside from disputes over China’s claims in the South China Sea and crackdowns in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, Beijing’s attempts to punish EU member states such as Lithuania for their dealings with Taiwan and the tit-for-tat sanctions against European parliamentarians have not been well received. In 2021, the bloc of 27 countries put on ice a major trade and investment deal with China amid rising tensions between the parties.
Macron and von der Leyen’s journey could be a first step toward improving those ties, said Ferenczy, the associate research fellow at the Institute for Security and Development Policy.
“Bilateral ties have deteriorated, and I think Beijing is also making efforts to restore relations,” Ferenczy said, adding that EU leaders understand they have “actual influence over China and we need to speak more from that position “.
“China wants to continue cooperation and business, trade relations with the EU.”