Xi Jinping starts in France, then goes to Serbia and Hungary

This will be Xi Jinping’s third visit to France since he came to power in 2013, and the pretext is the 60^e anniversary of France’s recognition of the People’s Republic of China and the establishment of their diplomatic relations. The Chinese president arrived on Sunday afternoon at Orly airport, where he was received by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

The visit will last two days, with a day of interviews with President Macron and official ceremonies at the Élysée, Monday, followed by a more intimate sequence, Tuesday, where the two presidents will go with their wives to the Hautes -Pyrenees, where Emmanuel Macron’s maternal grandmother lived, to whom he was particularly attached.

Attention to personal relationships

The intensity of the preparation testifies to the importance of this visit in the eyes of France. Last week, President Macron met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz to plan it and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will take part in part of the discussions on Monday. Tuesday’s informal sequence also recalls the very particular attention that the French president pays to personal relationships, even if the precedents with Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin have demonstrated their limits.

But this visit, which will undoubtedly give rise to numerous gestures of sympathy, will perhaps be more stingy in terms of real progress on the two main subjects which constitute its background: the war in Ukraine and the commercial tensions between China and the European Union.

A year ago, during the meeting of the two leaders in China, Emmanuel Macron asked Xi Jinping to use his influence to “bring Russia back to reason”. The Chinese leader has done nothing about it, and it is difficult to see why he would do so today when operations on the ground are in a phase favorable to Russia. In an interview given to “The Economist” on May 2, Emmanuel Macron nevertheless believes that “it is not in China’s interest today to have a Russia that destabilizes the international order. […]. We must therefore work with it to build peace.” The Élysée confirms that he will ask China to use “its levers to change the Russian position”.

Crossed accusations

The other priority issue is commercial: between China and the European Union, recent months have been rather tense, with several investigations opened on the European side into accusations of Chinese state subsidies to industrial sectors and a counterattack from Beijing accusing the France dumping on cognacs.

In these circumstances, the question of opening the Chinese market to exports of French meat or dairy products will be discussed, as will that of Chinese industrial investments in France, particularly in the field of electric vehicles, but there is little discussion. hope for significant announcements.

Diplomatic snub

At the end of his visit to France, Xi Jinping will fly to Serbia on Tuesday, where he will arrive exactly twenty-five years after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, during the NATO strikes of 1999. He will continue then with a visit to Hungary, until Friday. Two regimes which support Vladimir Putin and two regimes which have a favorable attitude to Chinese investments in infrastructure linked to the Silk Road. Paris would have liked these two stopovers to be avoided, but they were maintained. “The message sent by Xi is clear: opposition to NATO, struggle for influence with the Americans in Europe and support for illiberal regimes,” succinctly summarizes researcher Marc Julienne, director of the Asia Center at the French Institute of International Relations. (IFRI).

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