{"id":233305,"date":"2023-04-10T13:32:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T12:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=233305"},"modified":"2023-04-10T13:32:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T12:32:31","slug":"macron-says-europe-shouldnt-follow-the-us-into-a-confrontation-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/04\/macron-says-europe-shouldnt-follow-the-us-into-a-confrontation-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron Says Europe Shouldn\u2019t Follow the US into a Confrontation with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French leader wants ‘strategic autonomy’ for Europe.<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Xi Jinping calls for French respect and cooperation in meeting with Macron.\u00a0 | South China Morning Post<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Apr 2023 –<\/em> French President Emmanuel Macron said today that Europe should not follow the US <\/a>and risk a confrontation with China over Taiwan as he was returning to France from a visit to Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with POLITICO<\/em>, Macron discussed his desire for Europe to have \u201cstrategic autonomy\u201d and to become a \u201cthird superpower,\u201d which he said wouldn\u2019t be able to happen if Europe is involved in a conflict over Taiwan. He said Europe faces a \u201cgreat risk\u201d if it \u201cgets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French leader said in a crisis, Europeans might be \u201covercome with panic\u201d and \u201cbelieve we are just America\u2019s followers.\u201d He asked if a crisis over Taiwan would be in Europe\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question Europeans need to answer \u2026 is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

Increasing US support for Taiwan has made a conflict more likely as China has ramped up its military pressure on the island. China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army is currently conducting major exercises <\/a>in the Taiwan Strait in response to US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2019s (R-CA) meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.<\/p>\n

Macron added that Europeans don\u2019t have the credibility to really threaten to intervene in Taiwan. \u201cEuropeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, \u2018watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there\u2019? If you really want to increase tensions that\u2019s the way to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Macron broke with the US over Beijing\u2019s efforts to push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. While in Beijing, Macron told Xi <\/a>that he could \u201ccount\u201d on the Chinese leader \u201cto bring Russia to its sense and bring everyone back to the negotiating table.\u201d<\/p>\n

The position is drastically different than President Biden\u2019s as the White House came out against a ceasefire<\/a> in Ukraine ahead of Xi\u2019s recent trip to Moscow and immediately rejected the idea of Beijing as a mediator after China released a 12-point peace plan.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of<\/em> antiwar.com.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – news.antiwar.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Apr 2023 – French President Emmanuel Macron said today that Europe should not follow the US and risk a confrontation with China over Taiwan as he returned from Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Macron wants ‘strategic autonomy’ for Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":233306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2642,417,244,1326,1268,1675,91,112,1148,70,1038],"class_list":["post-233305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-bullying","tag-china","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-nato","tag-pentagon","tag-taiwan","tag-usa","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233307,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233305\/revisions\/233307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}