{"id":237009,"date":"2023-06-12T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=237009"},"modified":"2023-06-08T06:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T05:01:39","slug":"france-is-reportedly-making-a-principled-stand-against-natos-expansion-to-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/06\/france-is-reportedly-making-a-principled-stand-against-natos-expansion-to-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"France Is Reportedly Making a Principled Stand against NATO\u2019s Expansion to Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macron\u2019s position isn\u2019t driven by the desire to do any favors for President Xi, but is predicated on his assessment of France\u2019s national interests.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Emmanuel Macron – InfoBrics<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Jun 2023<\/em> – The Financial Times<\/a> cited eight unnamed sources who revealed that France is reportedly preventing the planned opening of NATO\u2019s liaison office in Japan<\/a>. According to them, Macron believes that this move violates the alliance\u2019s charter, which limits its geographic reach to the North Atlantic. He\u2019s also supposedly against anything that can contribute to NATO-Chinese tensions<\/a>. The spanner that the French leader unexpected threw into the bloc\u2019s Asian expansion plans comes after his trip to China in early April.<\/p>\n

He visited the People\u2019s Republic along with<\/a> European Commissioner Von Der Leyen<\/strong> around two weeks after President Xi traveled to Moscow<\/a>. Upon returning home, Macron revived his prior rhetoric about Europe\u2019s strategic autonomy in the New Cold War<\/a>, specifically saying that the continent should resist American pressure<\/a> to take its side over Taiwan. Later that month, China\u2019s Ambassador to the EU said that his country\u2019s cooperation with the continent is as unlimited as<\/a> its cooperation with Russia.<\/p>\n

This sequence of events suggests that Macron\u2019s rhetoric was sincere despite many in the Alt-Media Community<\/a> suspecting that he was just trying to strategically disarm Russia with his words. About that alleged end goal, Kremlin spokesman Peskov confirmed<\/a> in early June that Moscow doesn\u2019t regard Paris as a suitable mediator in the NATO-Russian<\/a> proxy<\/a> war<\/a> due to its direct involvement in it. Nevertheless, there\u2019s also no denying that France\u2019s reported stand against NATO\u2019s Asian expansion is commendable.<\/p>\n

That said, Macron\u2019s position isn\u2019t driven by the desire to do any favors for President Xi, but is predicated on his assessment of France\u2019s national interests. In his mind, the bloc\u2019s growing involvement on the other side of Eurasia needlessly provokes the People\u2019s Republic, which is the EU\u2019s top trade partner. Moreover, it could also make it more difficult for NATO to contain Russia<\/a> in Europe if its members end up dividing their focus between that front and the Asia-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Simply put, France has yet to fully abandon the notion of national interests like most of its liberal<\/a>\u2013globalist<\/a> European peers have already done, which explains Macron\u2019s reported resistance to NATO\u2019s plans. His country\u2019s different approach to International Relations is likely attributable to its neo-colonial empire<\/a> in Africa, which is crumbling as a result of Russia\u2019s \u201cDemocratic<\/a> Security<\/a>\u201d inroads there over the past few years but still exists in some form.<\/p>\n

No other NATO member has anything comparable, which is why the majority of them are predisposed to complying with the demands of this bloc\u2019s US leader even at the expense of their own interests in pursuit of what Washington claims is the \u201cgreater good\u201d. France might ultimately be pressured by the US and its vassals to such an extent that it\u2019s forced to relent on its reported opposition to the bloc\u2019s Asian expansion plans, but for now Macron is holding his ground in defense of his country\u2019s national interests.<\/p>\n

This observation proves that NATO\u2019s internecine rifts are naturally occurring, just like the ones that the bloc has with Hungary<\/a> and Turkiye<\/a>, and not the result of foreign meddling like the Mainstream Media misleading implies is the case. While it\u2019s true that the US exploited its proxy war with Russia to successfully reassert its unipolar hegemony<\/a> over Europe, it failed to do so completely, and that\u2019s why France still has a modicum of sovereignty<\/a> left to resist NATO\u2019s Asian expansion plans (at least for now).<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>Andrew Korybko<\/i> is an American political analyst, journalist and a regular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions at the People\u2019s Friendship University of Russia. He specializes in Russian affairs and geopolitics, specifically the US strategy in Eurasia.<\/i><\/p>\n

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

7 Jun 2023 – The Financial Times cited eight sources who revealed that France is preventing the opening of NATO\u2019s liaison office in Japan. Macron\u2019s position is predicated on his assessment of France\u2019s national interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":237012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[417,244,1326,1268,1675,1126,179,91,112,1148,961,2200,70,1594],"class_list":["post-237009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-bullying","tag-china","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-hegemony","tag-japan","tag-nato","tag-pentagon","tag-taiwan","tag-ukraine","tag-us-empire","tag-usa","tag-war-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237009","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=237009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237013,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237009\/revisions\/237013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}