The last month or so has been an active time in Chinese-western relations. Early March saw President Xi threaten the US with conflict unless Washington stopped trying to ‘suppress’ his country; shortly afterwards he flew to Moscow to reaffirm his ‘no-limits’ friendship with President Putin. Next, Taiwan’s President Tsai travelled to the US to meet with lawmakers there. In response, Beijing ordered massive military incursions into Taiwan’s sovereign waters, announced that it would be able to inspect Taiwanese shipping, and briefly cut off the island using ships and aircraft in what many took to be a dress-rehearsal for a blockade.
Whether Macron likes it or not, both the EU and France are fundamentally dependent on the US
Into this maelstrom strode President Macron of France. Whilst returning from a three-day visit to China, he surprised western leaders by announcing that there was a ‘great risk’ of Europe becoming ‘caught up in crises that are not ours’. Rather than offering support to Washington and its allies over the increasingly fraught confrontation with Beijing, Macron proposed that the EU should not take its cue from America regarding conflict over Taiwan. Instead, he called for strategic autonomy for Europe, and for the EU to develop into a ‘third pole’ alongside China and the US.
Macron’s remarks have not gone down well with many in the West. In Germany, the former Chair of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Norbert Röttgen said that the French President had ‘managed to turn his China trip into a PR coup for Xi and a foreign policy disaster for Europe’, while an editorial in the Wall Street Journal accused him of undermining US and Japanese deterrence against China in the western Pacific.
Soundbites aside, there is a primary flaw to Macron’s vision. Whether he likes it or not, both the EU and France are fundamentally dependent on the US.
Economically, Europe is a major trade partner with America, is part of the dollar system, and receives more foreign direct investment from across the Atlantic than from anywhere else. Militarily, the last century has repeatedly shown how Europe is reliant on the US, right up to today in Ukraine.
What’s more, any move to break EU-US relations would be challenged by many of France’s European partners. Countries like Sweden and Lithuania have suffered from bullying by China, and would be far more inclined to take America’s side in any crisis over Taiwan.
Some have described Macron’s stance as akin to that taken by President Chirac when he opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. But the situation today is very different to 2003. The China problem has become central to the American political agenda, with many in Washington seeing Beijing’s ambitions as an existential threat to US hegemony – something that was never the case with Saddam.
Taiwan has become a central, totemic part of this struggle. If China manages to forcefully reunite with the island, then this will be detrimental to America’s position in several ways. First, a victory for Beijing will overnight nullify America’s security guarantees. Why would Japan, or South Korea, or Australia, believe that the US could keep them safe if it couldn’t help Taiwan?
Second, the economic impact on western economies would be devastating, not least through the interruption to the semiconductor supply chain. Taiwan is vital to their manufacture, for example being responsible for 90 per cent of advanced microchips. If China – through blockade or invasion – stopped the flow of chips to western nations, then it would devastate their economies.
Perhaps the worry of economic disruption lies behind Macron’s words. By playing nice with Xi, maybe he hopes to keep France and Europe out of whatever conflict lies ahead, and so keep the chips and other raw materials flowing from the Far East.
But this is wishful thinking. If a move is made on Taiwan, then as a minimum the US, Japan, and the UK will sanction China. At that point, Washington will make it clear to the EU that, as an ally, it will be expected to follow suit, just as it did with Russia. In theory, France could stop Brussels from doing so, but it is hard to see America taking this lying down. And in a stand-off between the US and the EU, the Atlanticist states of Northern and Eastern Europe would find it difficult to side with France when they themselves have been so critical of China.
Macron is wrong on two counts. First, in thinking that Europe can stop its reliance on the US, at least in the short term. Many experts from both China and the West think that something might erupt over Taiwan within the next few years, and it is simply not feasible for the EU to divorce itself from America in that timeframe.
The French President’s second error is believing that his European neighbours want to move away from reliance on America in the first place, particularly with China waiting in the wings.
All Macron has done with his remarks is to muddy the waters. For someone so keen to avoid being dragged into conflict over Taiwan, he might have actually made this more likely: after his comments, some in Beijing may miscalculate that Europe is less likely to stand with America.
Rather than talking loftily of strategic autonomy, Macron should instead be focused on how best to prepare his country (and the EU) for the storm that looks increasingly likely to break. As the French President of all people should know, preparing for conflict is always better in the long run than opportunistic appeasement.
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