I know I can count on you to Russia regains common sense and everyone goes to the negotiating table”. Of all the requests for mediation that Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has heard, none is as crude as that of his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. The first Sino-French summit since the coronavirus broke out, it has had its foreseeable nucleus in the war in Ukraine and in the urgency to finish it. Good intentions have abounded but it is doubtful that Beijing will come out with anything tangible.
China has showered the gathering with pomp, including a military parade, to underline the packaging. The press has clarified that the visit, the first by a European head of state after the end of the parenthesis of the zero covid policy and the National Popular Assembly, will breathe a “new vitality into relations” with the Old Continent, in apparent oblivion of the recent trip of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez. “The world is undergoing a profound historical transformation,” Xi greeted Macron, with a formula similar to the one he used to say goodbye to Putin in Moscow. He has also applauded the French defense of a multipolar world and of greater democracy in international relations in what sounded like the umpteenth criticism of US hegemony.
The official announcements are short on surprises. The Frenchman recalls that “Russian aggression has dealt a blow to global stability & rdquor ;. A “secure and stable Europe” is unfeasible, he continues, as long as a country remains militarily occupied by a member of the United Nations Security Council in flagrant violation of its founding charter. “We need to achieve lasting peaceI am sure that it is an issue as important for China as it is for Europe and France & rdquor ;, he abounds.
china and france they share the concern for the war but the path to end it separates them. Macron has stressed that the solution has to be in accordance with the UN Charter and the European Union has repeated that only the Ukrainian peace plan, and not the Chinese one, meets the requirement. The twelve points of the Chinese proposal are judged in Washington and Brussels as excessively heeled towards Russia and its vagueness has been scorned instead of valued as a ideal starting point to approach opposite positions. The Chinese statement, more succinct, speaks of the urgency of peace and the need to strengthen Sino-European relations without going into details about the war in Ukraine.
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Any hope of a quick solution was ruined by Moscow. The Kremlin recognized the “potential & rdquor; from China for mediation but advanced that the situation in Ukraine is “complex & rdquor; and “for now it lacks expectations for a peace agreement & rdquor ;. “There is no choice” but to continue the war, added the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Macron has been accompanied by some sixty businessmen, to grease trade agreements, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, to offer an image of unity. Both represent the different European sensibilities towards China. Macron is pragmatic and moderate, wants to strengthen political and commercial ties and flees from the confrontation imposed by Washington. Von der Leyen defends a progressive light decoupling in key sectors for security, mistrusts Chinese tech companies and seeks self-sufficiency in areas dominated by Beijing. German politics has assured after its meeting with Xi that it has persevered in its usual harsh tone, that I have reminded it that Brussels is next to Ukraine and that sending weapons to Moscow would mean “significant damage & rdquor; for bilateral relations. He has also applauded the “reiterated will & rdquor; expressed by Xi to speak with the Ukrainian president, Volodymir Zelensky, when “the time and conditions are right & rdquor ;.