French President Macron and President of European Union Visit China
From April 5-7, French President Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by European Union Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, will be on an official state visit to China. Macron will meet with Chinese President Xi as well as Premier Li Qiang and top legislator Zhao Leji. He will also visit Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said at the Ministry's routine press briefing. During the meeting, Xi and Macron will jointly map out the future development of bilateral relations, deepen China-France and China-EU cooperation in various fields, and have an in-depth exchange of views on major international and regional hotspot issues," the newspaper Global Times quoted him saying. "China is ready to work with France to take this visit as an opportunity to produce new outcomes in the close and enduring comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, promote the sound development of China-EU relations and contribute to world peace, stability, and development," Mao said.
Ursula von der Leyen's visit will mark the 20th anniversary of the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership. Despite very provocative comments made by von der Leyen on the eve of her trip, the Chinese side upheld a diplomatic stance. "The sound and stable development of China-EU relations is in both sides' common interests and conducive to world peace and stability," Mao said at the press conference on the two visits. He said that a "tighter grasp of Europe in its rivalry with China, and the scarcity of China-EU exchanges at various levels are factors leading to a decline in China-EU political trust." Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times that intensive visits by European leaders highlighted a bilateral consensus that China and the EU should maintain smooth communication channels and hold substantial exchanges, "so as to overcome the mutual recognition gaps and remove trust deficits, implementing leaders' consensus into pragmatic actions." Analysts quoted by Global Times highlighted that "Even if some differences cannot be resolved, communication itself is a process of trust building." They underscored that China and the EU, as two pillars of the global landscape, "should and could" work with each other in a positive and constructive way "when the world faces armed conflict and risks of recession."
In the run-up to von der Leyen's visit, on March 14, the European Council on Foreign Relations issued a policy paper advising that the EU focus more on "the southern neighbourhood" and less on concluding free trade arrangements with China. The policy paper does not speak in terms of sovereign countries with national interests and on what basis the EU should build relations with them. It speaks of the "global south" as if it were Europe's neighbourhood, in which Europe is the head honcho fending off unwanted "actors" in what the EU considers to be its back yard, one reporter commented.
In similar vein, on March 30, on the eve of her trip, von der Leyen delivered a keynote to the Mercator Institute for China Studies and European Policy Centre. In its tone and content the speech can be regarded as foreign policy conducted by way of insults and threats, designed to sour the atmosphere before setting foot in China. It denounced President Xi for refusing to condemn Russia for it's "atrocious and illegal invasion of Ukraine" and instead maintaining a "no-limits friendship" with Putin. "How China continues to interact with Putin's war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations going forward," von der Leyen said.
She spoke of "escalatory actions" by China that "point to a China that is becoming more repressive at home and more assertive abroad." "China has now turned the page on the era of 'reform and opening' and is moving into a new era of security and control," she said. "The second conclusion we can draw flows from this -- and that is that the imperative for security and control now trumps the logic of free markets and open trade."
China took note of her provocative pre-trip remarks. Fu Cong, China's ambassador to the European Union, said he was "a little bit disappointed." "That speech contained a lot of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and the Chinese positions," Fu told the Chinese broadcaster CGTN. "Whoever wrote that speech for President von der Leyen does not really understand China or deliberately distorted Chinese positions," he added.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 5 - March 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS530515.HTM
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