French president Emmanuel Macron said he would seek to convince Xi Jinping to take “a shared responsibility for peace” in Ukraine, the latest bid by a European leader to coax China’s president away from support of Moscow.
Speaking as he arrived in Beijing for a three-day state visit on Wednesday, Macron said it would be a mistake not to talk to China about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine given the influence Xi could have on Vladimir Putin.
“Do we agree with everything in [China’s plan]? No. However it shows a will to play a responsible role and try to build a pathway to peace,” he said in reference to China’s 12-point position paper on the war in Ukraine released in late February.
“We, Europeans, would be mistaken to let Russia be the only European nation speaking to China,” he added.
Macron, who will be joined by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on the trip, will be walking a delicate line with Xi when they meet him on Thursday. In addition to the messages on Russia, the French president is seeking to reboot the broader Franco-Chinese relationship from trade to culture as the Covid-19 pandemic subsides.
Analysts said the European leaders were unlikely to convince the Chinese leader to drop his personal backing of Putin or China’s economic support of Russia.
Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think-tank, said the possibility of any real shift in the near future in both how Xi views Putin and in how the Chinese Communist party leadership views Russia was “basically zero”.
“Xi Jinping and other top leaders genuinely feel sympathy for Russia. They believe Putin has his back pushed against the wall by Nato expanding,” Roberts said. “They very much see a parallel . . . with the US presence in the Indo-Pacific.”
An Elysée official acknowledged that the talks might not lead to an immediate breakthrough, but that France saw value in laying the groundwork with China that could pay off later if and when Ukraine and Russia were ready for peace talks.
Macron spoke to US president Joe Biden before going to China. The White House said the leaders “reiterated their steadfast support for Ukraine”, while the Elysée said they discussed their “shared desire to engage China in speeding the end of the war and helping build a durable peace in the region”.
In an interview with the Financial Times this week, von der Leyen said China was in a position to influence Russia over Ukraine “and therefore [it has] a responsibility” to do so. She previously warned Beijing that its stance on the war would be a “determining factor” for the future of the EU-China relationship.
Xi travelled to Moscow last month in a clear demonstration of his personal ties with Russia’s president, whom he called his “dear friend”. China also earlier sought to position itself as a non-aligned broker on the Ukraine war by releasing the 12-point position paper.
But the document mostly reiterated Beijing’s previous talking points and was dismissed by western officials for failing to dispel concerns about Beijing’s touted “no-limits partnership” with Moscow.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said China’s leadership had done little to engage with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who Xi has not called — or consider Kyiv’s interests, despite Moscow “flagrantly violating its neighbour’s territorial integrity and the UN Charter”.
“China is unlikely to converge with western positions on Ukraine during European leaders’ visits to Beijing,” Easley said. “Instead, Xi may double down on support of Putin while trying to appear the reasonable statesman in dialogue with all parties.”
The trip follows visits to Beijing late last year by German chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council president Charles Michel, neither of whom was able to achieve a substantive change in Chinese policy.
Instead, experts noted, Beijing has sought to cleave individual officials away from broader anti-China sentiment and an escalating push for economic decoupling.
“Chinese actors will look to drive wedges between US allies, increase national technological autonomy, pressure vulnerable foreign firms and win ever greater market share in developing countries,” Easley said.
In an olive branch to France, China plans to sign co-operation agreements across aerospace, civil nuclear energy, agriculture and supply chains during Macron’s visit.
Chinese state media on Tuesday quoted Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to Paris, as acknowledging “setbacks and difficulties” in relations with France and Europe, for which he blamed the US for forcing countries to “take sides”.
Despite the hardening attitudes in Europe, Lu said: “There is no fundamental conflict of interest or contradiction between the two sides.”
Additional reporting by William Langley in Hong Kong
