“The question of Russian or Chinese predation is of great concern to Washington,” says Sébastien Lecornu

According to the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Trump administration or not, the “Chinese obsession would have been before us”.

“The question of Russian or Chinese predation is of great concern to Washington,” said Tuesday January 21 on France Inter the French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, after the inauguration of Donald Trump on Monday, during which the American president once again highlighted plans to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland.

The minister underlines the fact that the “common point between the [canal de] Panama and Greenland”it's China and “the trade war between China and the United States”. According to Sébastien Lecornu, “we grew up in classrooms with Europe and Africa, in the middle of our planispheres. Now, in Washington, the middle of the planisphere is the North Pacific, it is this place in which the three greatest navies in the world cross paths.”

For him, the threat made by Donald Trump is serious because “by definition, we must always take the heads of state of the great powers seriously”but he also considers that this “China obsession”, the “China challenge”, “whatever American administration would have been before us”.