The U.S.’s foreign policy disasters are continuing to mount on President Joe Biden’s watch. The situation has become so dire that Biden may have just lost… France.
Emmanuel Macron has returned from a four-day state visit to China with a renewed sense of commitment to see France and the E.U. further distance themselves from the United States.
The French president criticized the U.S. for forging closer relations with Taiwan, positioning itself to end its “One China” policy, and possibly provoking a Beijing-Taiwan war. According to a Chinese communiqué, Macron called Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States “regrettable,” and formally expressed his support for the “One China” policy.
“The question posed to us Europeans is: do we have an interest in things speeding up over Taiwan?” Macron reportedly asked. “No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must blindly follow on this issue, adapting to U.S. rhythm and Chinese overreactions. Why would we need to follow a rhythm others have chosen for us? At a certain point, we must pose the question of our own interests. … It would be paradoxical, as we set up elements of a true European strategic autonomy, if we suddenly began to follow U.S. policy in a sort of panic response.”
Macron also reportedly asked for Xi’s help to “bring Russia back to a reasonable policy” in Ukraine. Xi responded, as the Chinese People’s Daily reported, by pledging to “work with France to call on the international community to maintain rationality and restraint to avoid actions that will make the Ukraine crisis deteriorate further.”
The French president also expressed doubt in the long-term position of the dollar as the global reserve currency.
“I want to take the opportunity to insist on one point: we should not depend on the extraterritoriality of the US dollar,” he said.
Macron’s comment comes as Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have all brokered deals with China to carry out trade using the Chinese yuan.
The French president called for a military buildup to fashion Europe into a “third superpower.”
“As history is accelerating, we must in parallel accelerate the European war economy. We do not produce [arms] fast enough,” he said, adding: “The key to depending less on the Americans is to strengthen our defense industry and agree on common standards” for arms manufacturing in Europe.
Macron worried about Washington provoking all-out war with China too soon, before such a EU military build-up could be complete. He said, “If there is an acceleration of the explosion of the [US-China] duopoly, we will not have the time or the means to finance our strategic autonomy and will become vassals, though we could be the third pole if we had a few years to build it up.”
“For too long, Europe did not build this strategic autonomy I am fighting for,” he added. “Today, the ideological battle has been won, the structure is set. It comes at a cost, inevitably. … We carried out cuts, they are harsh, we are starting to see results but at the same time, we are paying for what we did not do in the last 20 years.”
China’s Xi Jinping gave French President Emmanuel Macron “an unusually lavish welcome” on the state visit, Reuters reported, which some analysts see as a sign of “Beijing’s growing offensive to woo key allies within the European Union to counter the United States.”
China’s state-run Global Times” praised Macron for potentially opening a path to a China-Europe alliance counterbalancing Washington.
“The Chinese people have always appreciated the strategic autonomy and independent diplomatic spirit demonstrated by France in the changing international landscape,” the Global Times wrote. “Back then, former French President Charles de Gaulle adhered to pursuing an independent foreign policy to safeguard France’s national sovereignty and interests… It is clear to everyone that being a strategic vassal of Washington is a dead end. Making the China-France relationship a bridge for China-Europe cooperation is beneficial to both sides and to the world.”
Macron gave an interview to Politico regarding his state visit with Xi Jinping. The interview reflects Macron’s tricky diplomatic maneuver to disentangle France from the United States, as well as the deterioration of Western journalism into little better than state-run propaganda.
“Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China,” Politico reported.
“Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of ‘strategic autonomy’ for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a ‘third superpower’,” the report continued.
Macron said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” the report added.
The Politico article critically glosses over the most timely flashpoint in international relations: China’s growing confrontation with Taiwan and the U.S. over the Taiwan Strait.
“Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan ‘intensely,’ according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union,” Politico reported.
Xi argued that anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded. Macron “appears to agree with that assessment,” Politico noted.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
The Politico report also included the EU President’s earlier statement on Taiwan.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Politico’s editorial note at the bottom of the article sums up the current state of journalism in the West.
“As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and ‘proofreading’ all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview,” the editorial notes states. “This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.”
If Europe is positioning itself to become a “third superpower,” the United States should be preparing now to go it alone. It should drop its pretentious failing globalist projects and put its own national security first before it’s too late.
It will soon be “America alone” — whether the nation’s leaders know it or not.
Follow Kyle Becker on Twitter @kylenabecker.
