Three years after his last visit, Emmanuel Macron set foot on Chinese soil on Wednesday for a three-day state visit. Accompanied by about fifty business leaders, it will mainly be about economy and trade. Paris thus hopes to sign several contracts to rebalance a deficit trade balance. “We import from China much more than we export. The Silk Road trains arrive full of goods and leave empty or with a few bottles of Cognac”, ironically Emmanuel Véron, specialist in contemporary China and associate teacher-researcher at Inalco.
In this sense, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen is also on the trip to address these economic issues on a European scale, but also the diplomatic aspect through the war in Ukraine.
A deteriorated Franco-Chinese relationship
For Emmanuel Macron, this state visit is an opportunity to heal the wounds of a degraded Franco-Chinese relationship. The causes are multiple, starting with the Covid-19. A major part of French opinion has become aware of “the authoritarianism put in place by China to manage the crisis, with its procession of lies and mistreatment”, explains Emmanuel Lincot, professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris and sinologist researcher associated with IRIS.
“We discovered that we were facing a real authoritarianism”, closely linked to the governance of Chinese President Xi Jinping, re-elected for a third term at the head of a state apparatus whose “aggressive statements say a lot about the way they perceive us”, continues Emmanuel Véron. A very different perception from twenty years ago, due to France’s loss of influence in international affairs: “China considers us as a middle power, with difficulties”, estimates the expert. Added to this the imbalance in the trade balance, the deterioration of Sino-American relations and recently the war in Ukraine, the time of the “friend Chirac” seems a long way off.
At the same time strategy
However, Emmanuel Macron wants to try to return to much more “peaceful and constructive” Franco-Chinese relations. “The Élysée is in a logic of openness by wishing to put China back around the table. It’s delicate and a bit naive”, judge Emmanuel Véron. A logic that the French president intends to carry out thanks to his famous strategy of “at the same time”, analyzes Françoise Nicolas, director of the Asia center at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
Before continuing: “After having abandoned the idea of a democratic China, he still wants to try to make it evolve on other aspects”. In particular on the economic level, where he hopes for more reciprocity. It is therefore necessary “to be able to speak somewhat firmly to China to make it understand that it must evolve”, assures Françoise Nicolas. On the diplomatic level, Emmanuel Macron will be less firm, “more accommodating”, because he wants the second world power to play a diplomatic role, particularly in Ukraine. “He will play on two tables, which is far from simple”.
With or without Europe?
To convince China to go in its direction, France must necessarily go through a coalition of European countries to show that it “is not alone”. “Today, the Franco-Chinese relationship can only be improved through Europe. We must highlight European unity, it is the only way to be listened to”, believes Françoise Nicolas. Especially since the European Union remains China’s leading trading partner.
Concretely, this must go through “the definition of a clear industrial, political and military line on the Chinese subject”, explains Emmanuel Véron. To make China move, “it would take the same European convergence as that vis-à-vis Ukraine”. What at present, “is easier said than done”, recognizes Françoise Nicolas. For Emmanuel Lincot, this convergence is “almost impossible” to put in place “when we know the antagonisms between France and Germany on the subject of China”. Moreover, Ursula Von der Lyen is far from being “the best friend” of the Chinese, given her recent speeches and the one she gave this Thursday in Beijing.
In such a context, Paris must take the “lead”, still according to Emmanuel Lincot. A member of the UN Security Council, very old Franco-Chinese relations, the only nuclear power in the EU and the second largest maritime power in the world, France is in a sufficiently important political and military situation. “These are very valuable assets. This is what allows us to differentiate ourselves from Europeans”, continues the researcher who thinks that France is the only one to have a capacity of impetus for all European countries. An opinion far from being shared by Françoise Nicolas, for whom the privileged relationship between France and China is illusory. “We like to believe that since the recognition in 1964 of the People’s Republic of China by De Gaulle, but we are no longer a first-class power”, she asserts.
Send a clear message
Apart from this European issue, the improvement of Franco-Chinese relations must go through the transmission of a clear message: we are allies of the United States, but we are not aligned. “We do not perceive China like the United States. They put forward the concept of democracies against autocracies. It is a dichotomy that we do not accept in France. We are not in such an approach confrontational than them”, explains Françoise Nicolas.
However, efforts should not be one-sided. “We agree that China should develop, but this development must take place under fair conditions, respecting the rules of the game, both at the commercial level, but also on other aspects such as rights. of man or respect for borders”. A “give and take”, easier said than done…