There are already some downsides to Xi Jinping’s state visit to France. On May 6 and 7, the Chinese president makes his first visit to Europe since 2019, and after the long isolation of his country during the Covid-19 pandemic. But a few days before the arrival of the all-powerful leader, on April 30, Emmanuel Macron met Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government in exile, on the sidelines of a ceremony at the Elysée.
For his part, a few hours earlier, Senator Olivier Cadic had revealed that he had been the victim of a computer hack orchestrated by China and questioned the government during a questioning session in the Senate: “This is clearly an act of cyberwar, committed by a 2.0 dictatorship. » Thursday May 2, the magazine Challenges and the program “Envoyé Spécial”, on France 2, published an investigation into an attempted forced repatriation of a young Chinese critic of his country’s regime and living in France, involving members of the Chinese embassy.
In an increasingly asymmetrical relationship in favor of Beijing, addressing the issue of human rights is difficult for the French president, who does not want to offend his Chinese counterpart. For their part, the Chinese rebel against the slightest criticism of what they consider to be their internal affairs. French civil society is therefore struggling to raise the issue on the sidelines of the official visit, which must address as a priority strategic subjects, the war in Ukraine in the lead, and economic ones, such as Chinese overcapacity and the defense measures envisaged by take the European Union. On Sunday May 5, two demonstrations are to take place to denounce the repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang on the one hand, and that of the Tibetans on the other.
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France has, however, several times highlighted its desire to maintain “a demanding and systematic dialogue with China on human rights”, recalls the NGO Amnesty International in a press release published Thursday May 2. The organization calls on Emmanuel Macron not to forget this commitment during his talks with Xi Jinping. “More particularly, the President of the Republic must demand the release of [l’intellectuel ouïgour] Ilham Tohti and other prisoners of conscience, demand an end to the persecution against the hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and Kazakhs still arbitrarily detained in camps, and the repeal of the law on safeguarding national security which aims to silence any dissident voice in Hong Kong”, estimates the NGO.
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