Will Macron and von der Leyen play ‘good cop, bad cop’ on China visit?

First came German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Then came European Council President Charles Michel. Next, it was Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s turn. Now French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are the latest European leaders to visit China since Beijing dropped its zero-Covid restrictions in December 2022.

Macron’s visit is being billed as an attempt to engage with Chinese President Xi Jinping amid deteriorating EU-China relations due to widening rifts over the Ukraine war.

“China is the only country in the world capable of having an immediate and radical impact on the conflict, in one direction or the other,” a French presidential palace official told reporters in Paris ahead of the visit.

It comes as relations between the US and China are at new low after President Joe Bidenordered a Chinese surveillance balloon that had flown over a wide section of the continental US shot down in February.

Macron aims to “stand firm” towards Xi on Ukraine while taking “another path” from the directly confrontational position adopted by the US, said the French presidential official briefing reporters.

The “alternate path” discourse takes a leaf out of China’s playbook following the diplomatic hits Beijing received with the Covid crisis and Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Since China adopted a controversial, avowedly neutral position on the Ukraine war, Beijing has increased its calls for a “multipolar” world order – a position echoed by Moscow – in a bid to counteract Washington’s “unipolar” hegemony.

The multipolar call was reissued by China’s top diplomat Wang Yi in his address to the Munich Security Conference in February, during what one headline dubbed his “uncharming charm offensive in Europe”.

“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the warfare… what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” Wang told the gathering in Germany.

Just weeks after Wang lectured European leaders on the need to display strategic autonomy, Chinese President Xi was in Moscow, where he was warmly greeted by Putin. The meeting of the “dear friends”, as the two leaders referred to their personal bond, came days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes, underscoring the deep diplomatic rifts unleashed by the Ukraine war.

Macron’s visit is also billed as a bid to “rebalance trade ties” with Beijing, a longstanding aim of French presidential visits to China, which typically feature business leaders in the presidential delegation.

The latest visit, Macron’s first in three and a half years, sees 60 French business leaders travelling with the president, including the bosses of Airbus and EDF (Électricité de France).

The inevitable watch for the “signing of lucrative contracts” is likely to be more interesting this year, with Macron arriving in China with von der Leyen. Beijing has been especially irked over the EU chief’s recent comments on China’s unfair trade practices, setting the stage for some careful scrutiny by China analysts.

Scathing speech irks China

Just weeks before her arrival in China, von der Leyen delivered a scathing speech in Brussels in her first full address on the 27-member bloc’s relations with Beijing.

Europe needs to be “bolder” on China because Beijing has become “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad,” said von der Leyen.

Her March 30 speech ticked all the boxes that traditionally draw Beijing’s ire, including human rights violations against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province, the deteriorating geopolitical situation in Taiwan and Beijing’s economic retaliations against Lithuania.

But it was her comments on the need to reassess the bloc’s China trade deal, known as the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), that raised eyebrows in Europe and across the Atlantic.

“We have to recognise that the world and China have changed in the last three years – and we need to reassess CAI in light of our wider China strategy,” said von der Leyen.

Her speech drew condemnations from Chinese diplomats, including from China’s ambassador to the EU, who told the CGTN state broadcaster that, “Whoever wrote that speech for President von der Leyen does not really understand China or deliberately distorted Chinese positions.”

Macron and von der Leyen are expected to play “good cop, bad cop” on their China visit, explained Dorian Malovic, Asia editor of French daily La Croix and author of several books on China. “Europe is now asking for reciprocity for European countries operating in China because it’s not a fair competition in China,” explained Malovic.

The visit is also likely to see the use of the terms “de-risking” and “decoupling” following von der Leyen’s call for a “de-risking” of the EU’s relationship with China.

By calling for a “de-risking”, von der Leyen marked a rhetorical difference with the US policy of “decoupling” trade with China, particularly in the high-tech sector. “De-risking” simply indicates the taking of steps to reduce or eliminate risk, especially to minimise loss, whereas “decoupling” suggests a stronger breaking off of ties.

The European Commission is looking into creating a mechanism for scrutinising overseas investments by EU companies in sensitive technology sectors in a bid to “de-risk” the possibility that the technologies would be put to military use.

Ukraine on the agenda

The visit comes weeks after China released a 12-point “peace plan” to try to pause the fighting in Ukraine. But critics described Beijing’s plan for peace as a victory roll for Russia, in that it was skewed towards Moscow and against Kyiv’s interests.

Von der Leyen complained last week that “far from being put off by the atrocious and illegal invasion of Ukraine, President Xi is maintaining his ‘no-limits friendship’ with Putin’s Russia”, referring to the phrase coined during Putin’s 2022 visit to China shortly before the Ukraine invasion.

There are limits to what Macron and von der Leyen can achieve on key foreign policy issues such as the Ukraine war and Taiwan, according to Malovic.

“China is very opportunistic, it’s enjoying the fact that Russia is weakening, and both Moscow and Beijing need each other for their ideological alliance against the United States,” he explained. “I can’t imagine that Macron has the power to convince Xi Jinping to do something and I’m not sure Xi is willing to have any influence on Putin to tell him what to do,” he added.

The Europeans could raise a warning on China supplying weapons to Russia, explained Antoine Bondaz of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) in an interview with the AFP.

Bondaz predicted that the two European leaders could warn Xi from delivering arms in public while dangling the threat of sanctions in their private talks.

‘Diplomacy of balance’

With the Ukraine war bringing the EU closer to the US – the biggest arms supplier to the Kyiv regime – the recent spike in European visits to China is being watched in Washington without undue alarm, according to experts.

“Washington is pleased with what they heard from Ursula von der Leyen. But they don’t take Macron very seriously; even some European leaders don’t understand his positions,” said Malovic, referring to the French president’s periodic “en même temps” (“at the same time”)swings between tough talk against Russian aggression followed by warnings against humiliating Putin.

>> Macron’s ‘en même temps’ leaves France’s reputation hanging in the mix

France’s postwar “diplomacy of balance” dates back to General Charles de Gaulle’s attempt to counterweigh US dominance. But in another century, with US power waning and faced with Russian aggression on the European continent, many Western foreign policy experts have little time for France’s balancing act.

China, on the other hand, is a historical supporter of France’s diplomacy of balance. Bilateral relations between postwar France and China date back to 1964, when Paris, under de Gaulle, became the first Western nation to recognise the People’s Republic of China.

“There will be a lot of talk of an old friendship and friends forever, but I’m not sure there will be major breakthroughs,” said Malovic. “Beijing is very happy to see all the European leaders coming in. For China, it’s a win-win. It remains to be seen what Macron can manage on this visit.”