Beijing: Visiting French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “to bring Russia to its senses” in an effort to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to media reports.
Macron arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on his state-visit to China with high expectations for a possible breakthrough on working with the Asian giant to find solutions to end the war, reports CNN.
While Ukraine tops the agenda, Macron’s trip also has a strong economic component, with the President being accompanied by a delegation of some 50 business leaders, with some expected to finalise or even sign new deals during the trip.
He is also joined by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron and Xi engaged in closed-door talks on Thursday, which officials from the two nations described as being “frank” and “friendly”, the BBC reported.
Later in the day, the two Presidents joint addressed the media at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
In his opening statement, Macron told Xi: “I know I can count on you to bring Russia to its senses, and bring everyone back to the negotiating table.”
He went on to say Russia had “put an end to decades of peace in Europe” and that finding a “lasting peace” that respected internationally recognized borders was “an important issue for China, as much as it is for France and for Europe”.
“We can’t have a safe and stable Europe,” as long as Ukraine remained occupied, Macron said,adding that it was “unacceptable” that a member of the UN Security Council had violated the organisation’s charter.
On his part, the Chinese leader emphasised his country’s position on the Ukraine issue which is “consistent and clear”, Xinhua news agency reported.
“It is essentially about facilitating peace talks and political settlement. There is no panacea for defusing the crisis.”
Xi said it requires all parties to do their share and create conditions for ceasefire and peace talks through a buildup of trust and added “China supports Europe in playing its role in the political settlement of the crisis”.
He also said that peace talks should resume as soon as possible and urged the international community to “stay rational, exercise restraint, and avoid taking actions that might cause the crisis to further deteriorate or even spiral out of control”.
The Chinese leader reiterated that “nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought”, as well as opposed the “use of biological weapons under any circumstances”.
“China is ready to stay in touch with France and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis,” the President added.
Since the war began in February 2022, China has claimed neutrality and attempted to frame itself as an agent of peace.
It has also released its own peace plan which Western nations have been generally dismissive of, saying it sides too much with Russia.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed interest in it and called for direct talks with Xi, who is yet to publicly respond.
Macron’s trip, which comes four years since his last visit, marks the most politically significant interaction Xi has had with a Western leader since he met US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali last November.
Macron will continues his state visit on Friday with a trip to China’s southern commercial hub of Guangzhou, where he is expected to dine with Xi.
Edmund G. Brown Jr., who turns 85 on Friday, is one of this country’s most enduring public figures, enjoying a resilience and relevance into old age matched by few this side of the current occupant of the Oval Office. Unlike President Biden, who’s remained a Washington fixture from his 1972 election through the present, Brown has led a more itinerant political life.
The namesake of a governor who defeated Nixon only to lose to Ronald Reagan, the younger Brown has been governor for 16 years over three decades, state Democratic chairman, Oakland’s mayor, California’s attorney general and its secretary of state, a Jesuit seminarian, a student of Buddhism and an aspiring president three times, officially.
Now, he spends most of his time on 2,514 acres of his family’s land in rural Colusa County, well north of Sacramento, with his wife, Anne, and their dogs, Colusa and Cali.
Brown is not exactly living the serene life of a gentleman farmer, though. And he sure isn’t ready to discuss his legacy, rejecting in characteristic Jerry Brown fashion the very construct itself.
“What’s George Deukmejian’s legacy?” he demands, alluding to his little-remembered Republican successor in the 1980s before lamenting how even some giants are nearly forgotten. “You ask people about Earl Warren, people don’t know who Earl Warren was.”
Brown isn’t focused on the past because, as ever, he’s fixated on the here and now. To speak to him for over an hour is to see affirmation in the title of a superb recent biography: Man of Tomorrow.
So I’m a little reluctant to suggest that the topic Brown comes back to again and again in our conversation is his final mission, or some other catchy, sum-it-up phrase he’d detest as glib.
However, what worries Brown the most about tomorrow, in America and across the planet, is we won’t have very many of them if we stumble into a nuclear-tipped conflict with China.
“I’m very worried,” Brown told me. “And I don’t think the people in Washington are worried enough.”
Why not?
“That’s the big question: why are they not worried when nuclear powers are becoming so hostile to each other and there’s so little attempt at dialogue or reaching some modus vivendi, some way of co-existing.”
It’s easy to dismiss Brown as an alarmist.
After all, he’s been fretting about nuclear catastrophe for decades. I can recall him self-assigning a stop at the New York Times Washington bureau as governor a few years ago, where he came in to a quickly assembled group of reporters interested in politics, climate, immigration and all things Donald J. Trump (and, perhaps, Linda Ronstadt) and spent most of his time warning the group about the ticking doomsday clock before Armageddon.
However, our most recent conversation in San Francisco took place on the same day the Senate finally repealed the congressional authorization of force that sanctioned the U.S.’s war in Iraq. It was also just a few days after the 20th anniversary of an invasion that had strong bipartisan support at the time and now carries even stronger bipartisan regret today.
And at a moment when the two political parties are supposedly polarized, not even agreeing on the same facts, there sure does seem to be a great deal of bipartisan consensus about taking a hard line on China.
Look no further than the current visit of Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. She met with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries when she was in New York, sat down with a bipartisan group of senators in the city and Wednesday, in a setting plainly aimed at sending a confrontational message to the Chinese, was feted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers at a bunting-laden mini summit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (Unlike the Nixon Library down the road in Yorba Linda, there’s no section in Simi Valley dedicated to peace-making with Peking.)
That Republicans are taking a hawkish posture toward China is not surprising to Brown, but he’s plainly uneasy that so many in his own party are doing the same.
“There’s not much dissent, the chorus on China is overwhelming,” he says.
Iraq, Brown notes, “was a very minor power” while China “with 23 percent of the world’s population contrasts with our 4.1 percent.”
He continues: “So the notion that we can scare China and push them around or contain them and suppress their growth and development is utter folly. But it does seem to be widespread.”
Brown’s solution: diplomacy, and more of it between the country’s two leaders, and a continuation of the longstanding U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to Taiwan.
“This requires intensive exchange of views and ideas by the nation’s leaders,” Brown says. “In China, one guy counts. If you’re not talking to him, you’re not getting to the essence of what’s going on. So Biden is going to have to talk to Xi and they can’t talk for just an hour.”
The former governor doesn’t necessarily think Biden should visit China, but he favorably invoked how former President Barack Obama met with Xi Jinping at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate near Palm Springs, in 2013. (Brown himself also met with Xi on that trip and subsequently in Beijing, making him one of the few governors to have such high-level contact)
Brown called Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision to cancel his trip to China following the balloon affair “a mistake if you want to have communication,” and minimized the incursion over American airspace.
“We have balloons, we have satellites, everybody is observing the other guy,” he said.
The closest Brown will come to criticizing Beijing’s autocracy, human rights abuses or any of its other transgressions is to acknowledge that “there are things in China we find horrendous.” But in the next breath, he says “not everything we have done has been perfect, so we ought to have a little humility.”
Nuclear conflagration aside, Brown deems it’s naïve to think China can be isolated. “Even a serious decoupling could mean a real deterioration in the American and the world economy,” he says, adding: “We get another serious banking failure, mortgage meltdown, we can’t stabilize the world economy without China. Whether we like it or not this is the world we live in.”
It’s worth quoting from Brown at length on China, if for no other reason than he’s right about this: few in the corridors of power today are willing to make the case for restraint.
Yet as blunt as he is about issues, he requires some reading between the lines, or at least repeated questioning, when it comes to people.
Take one of his predecessors as California’s state party chair, Nancy Pelosi. Didn’t her trip to Taiwan last year exacerbate U.S. tensions with China?
“I’m not going to bite on that one,” he says
Why not?
“Nancy Pelosi is a good friend of mine, I’m not offering advice,” he explains.
You sound like a politician all the sudden, I say, what happened to freewheeling Jerry Brown?
“You sound like a reporter, looking for your lede,” he shoots back. “I’m not going to give you those ledes.”
Brown, however, is more forthcoming when it comes to Biden who, Brown notes without prompting, was elected to the Senate two years after he was elected to his first office, secretary of state.
Brown has conveyed his views on China to the president through intermediaries, “people who are close to Biden,” and relays that he’s told it’s Beijing that’s now not being responsive to Washington’s entreaties, a bit of intelligence borne out in my colleagues’ reporting this week.
It’s hard to be the grand old man of the Democratic Party, a sage of hard-won wisdom, however, when the current president has been in the fray as long as you have.
Which brings us to what you’re likely wondering: yes, Brown thinks he could serve as president today.
“I can handle the job but I don’t think the politics can handle my age,” he says. “We’re not like the old Soviet Union, where they had all those men in the Politburo, people want some fresher faces.”
And that in turn raises the question of whether he thinks Biden should run for re-election.
“Well, you know, it depends on what the alternatives are,” Brown says, pausing. “I’d say this it’s not a slam dunk any way you look at it.”
If he were younger, yes, he concedes he’d mount a primary of his own. “It would probably be hard to hold me back,” he says in a moment of self-awareness, recalling his “very stupid” challenge of then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
It takes more pressing, though, to elicit his actual view of Biden, but it’s worth the effort and fitting that he’s seated on a couch as he offers his assessment of who this president is.
“It’s similar to my father’s politics,” Brown offers. “There’s a sense of right and wrong, there’s a sense of fairness, there’s a certain old-fashioned quality about it.”
He calls it “Eastern seaboard Catholic Democratic politics” and its virtues include a “respect for the verities that have made us what we are and hold us together.”
And the downside? “That you can’t respond to changed circumstances.”
Speaking of sibling (or paternal!) rivalries.
If Brown is eventually forthcoming on Biden, he’s at his most uncomfortable when I shift the topic to the Californian who may succeed the president — and who was state attorney general when Brown was governor a decade ago.
Of the other Democrats who could run in 2024, I point out, Vice President Kamala Harris would be an obvious contender.
“Of the people on offer, there’s no doubt Biden is the strongest,” Brown says, suddenly coming around to Biden’s re-election.
Is Harris ready to be president, I ask?
“I don’t think vice presidents are ever ready,” he says, recalling that Eisenhower didn’t think his vice president was ready. (There’s Nixon again.)
Yes, but does this vice president have the capacity for the job?
“People thought John Kennedy was kind of a lightweight but he rose to the occasion,” he says, again turning to history for a vivid non-answer before chiding me for asking him to make “all these judgements.”
He insists he has “a good relationship” with Harris and that he’s “texted her a few times” as vice president but he doesn’t put much effort into the case before sounding like one of those old-school politicians he was talking about a few minutes earlier: “She’s been friendly to me and I’ve been friendly to her.”
He will, though, offer the vice president a bit of advice, and it comes tinged with envy from somebody who in our conversation has casually referenced Leo Tolstoy, Samuel Huntington, George Ball and his own piece in the New York Review of Books.
“Surround yourself with the best thinking on foreign policy, particularly, and domestic issues,” Brown says he’d tell Harris, noting that “she has access to everybody.”
He adds, longingly: ”She has the catbird seat as far as being where history is being made.”
It’s clear why Brown believes he never got closer to that catbird seat.
When I bring up how tomorrow can often be glimpsed first in California, a cliché I thought worth pursuing to get the futurist in him revving, he interrupts me.
“It’s an important place except when it comes to electing presidents, well you know the history,” he says, arguing that Reagan is the exception because “he was the leader of a conservative movement, he was national in scope.”
California, Brown notes, is more liberal than the states required to carry the Electoral College.
Could that hamper Gov. Gavin Newsom’s future ambitions, I ask?
Again, he turns to history to answer the question by way of dodging it.
“Well, I think it handicapped me running against Bill Clinton, him coming from Arkansas,” he says of his 1992 race.
Come on, I press him, would Newsom make a good president?
“I think he’s been a pretty good governor, so who the heck knows,” he responds before turning back the clock again. “I don’t even know if I would be a good president.”
On the California race of the moment, the campaign to succeed Senator Dianne Feinstein, Brown is clear about what he thinks America’s largest state deserves in the Capitol.
“Somebody of stature and very large conception,” he says, invoking Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and William Fulbright of Arkansas.
He initially says he won’t comment about which of the candidates has reached out to him, but it doesn’t take much guesswork for him to reveal that he’s yet to hear from Rep. Katie Porter but has talked to Reps Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, who have a much longer history in California politics than their younger colleague from Orange County.
Brown isn’t much interested in the early shadow boxing for a 2024 race, though, or really any politics-heavy conversation.
Which isn’t to say he’s uninterested in domestic issues. Although he talks about generational differences in lingo with his father — “he called it necking and we call it making out” — Brown sounds quite different from today’s liberals.
He largely eschews identity issues and, perhaps even more notable, appears unbothered by the threats to American democracy that alarm so many on the left and middle in the Age of Trump.
When I ask about the former president and whether he’s an extension of the backlash politics Brown witnessed up close in California or a more profound threat to the country, Brown quickly dispenses with Trump and comes back to China, Russia and the nuclear threat.
The domestic challenges he’s most fixated on are the ones he sees up close in California: climate change, homelessness, affordable housing and adequate education.
“Unless America can find some kind of convergence among its diverse groups it’s going to be paralyzed,” he warns.
There’s a more dangerous reason, Brown continues, to be concerned about the tug of identity politics on the right and left.
“As national identity weakens, smaller identities increase,” he says. “People want to identify with something.”
Now he’s onto Samuel Huntington and an essay Huntington wrote for Foreign Affairs in 1997 “bemoaning multi-culturalism” and arguing that “America needs a great national purpose which takes an enemy, and China isn’t strong enough but they will be someday.”
In case I had missed the point, Brown warns: “The fragmentation of America will be resolved by war.”
And just like that, he’s brought the conversation back to where he wants it.
Not surprisingly, when I close by asking what his one plea to Biden would be, Brown says: “They can’t demonize Xi Jinping to the point where dialogue is impossible.”
Returning to his nostalgia for Nixon’s diplomacy in Moscow and Peking, he says today we’ll “inherit a world with three nuclear powers on hair-trigger alert.”
However, nobody, Brown laments, “asks for my advice.”
But as we get up to leave, he wants to make sure his counsel will get through.
“Now what’s the lede?” he asks.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … 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 U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chinese leader Xi Jinping had one overriding message for his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron this week: Don’t let Europe get sucked into playing America’s game.
Beijing is eager to avoid the EU falling further under U.S. influence, at a time when the White House is pursuing a more assertive policy to counter China’s geopolitical and military strength.
Russia’s yearlong war against Ukraine has strengthened the alliance between Europe and the U.S., shaken up global trade, reinvigorated NATO and forced governments to look at what else could suddenly go wrong in world affairs. That’s not welcome in Beijing, which still views Washington as its strategic nemesis.
This week, China’s counter-offensive stepped up a gear, turning on the charm. Xi welcomed Macron into the grandest of settings at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. This was in sharp contrast to China’s current efforts to keep senior American officials at arm’s length, especially since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a trip to Beijing during the spy balloon drama earlier this year.
Both American and Chinese officials know Europe’s policy toward Beijing is far from settled. That’s an opportunity, and a risk for both sides. In recent months, U.S. officials have warned of China’s willingness to send weapons to Russia and talked up the dangers of allowing Chinese tech companies unfettered access to European markets, with some success.
TikTok, which is ultimately Chinese owned, has been banned from government and administrative phones in a number of locations in Europe, including in the EU institutions in Brussels. American pressure also led the Dutch to put new export controls on sales of advanced semiconductor equipment to China.
Yet even the hawkish von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, has dismissed the notion of decoupling Europe from China’s economy altogether. From Beijing’s perspective, this is yet another significant difference from the hostile commercial environment being promoted by the U.S.
Just this week, 36 Chinese and French businesses signed new deals in front of Macron and Xi, in what Chinese state media said was a sign of “the not declining confidence in the Chinese market of European businesses.” While hardly a statement brimming with confidence, it could have been worse.
For the last couple of years European leaders have grown more skeptical of China’s trajectory, voicing dismay at Beijing’s way of handling the coronavirus pandemic, the treatment of protesters in Hong Kong and Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims, as well as China’s sanctions on European politicians and military threats against Taiwan.
Then, Xi and Vladimir Putin hailed a “no limits” partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. While the West rolled out tough sanctions on Moscow, China became the last major economy still interested in maintaining — and expanding — trade ties with Russia. That shocked many Western officials and provoked a fierce debate in Europe over how to punish Beijing and how far to pull out of Chinese commerce.
Beijing saw Macron as the natural partner to help avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations, especially since Angela Merkel — its previous favorite — was no longer German chancellor.
Macron’s willingness to engage with anyone — including his much-criticized contacts with Putin ahead of his war on Ukraine — made him especially appealing as Beijing sought to drive a wedge between European and American strategies on China.
Xi Jinping sees Macron as the natural to Angela Merkel, his previous partner in the West who helped avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Not taking sides
“I’m very glad we share many identical or similar views on Sino-French, Sino-EU, international and regional issues,” Xi told Macron over tea on Friday, in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.
Strategic autonomy, a French foreign policy focus, is a favorite for China, which sees the notion as proof of Europe’s distance from the U.S. For his part, Macron told Xi a day earlier that France promotes “European strategic autonomy,” doesn’t like “bloc confrontation” and believes in doing its own thing. “France does not pick sides,” he said.
The French position is challenged by some in Europe who see it as an urgent task to take a tougher approach toward Beijing.
“Macron could have easily avoided the dismal picture of European and transatlantic disunity,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute. “Nobody forced Macron to show up with a huge business delegation, repeating disproven illusions of reciprocity and deluding himself about working his personal magic on Xi to get the Chinese leader to turn against Putin.”
Holger Hestermeyer, a professor of EU law at King’s College London, said Beijing will struggle to split the transatlantic alliance.
“If China wants to succeed with building a new world order, separating the EU from the U.S. — even a little bit — would be a prized goal — and mind you, probably an elusive one,” Hestermeyer said. “Right now the EU is strengthening its defenses specifically because China tried to play divide and conquer with the EU in the past.”
Xi’s focus on America was unmistakable when he veered into a topic that was a long way from Europe’s top priority, during his three-way meeting with Macron and von der Leyen. A week earlier the Biden administration had held its second Summit for Democracy, in which Russia and China were portrayed as the main threats.
“Spreading the so-called ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ [narrative],” Xi told his European guests on Thursday, “would only bring division and confrontation to the world.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping showed no sign of changing his position over Russia’s war on Ukraine after talks Thursday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
On the second day of Macron’s state visit to China, Xi took his long-standing line on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — saying that “all sides” have “reasonable security concerns” — and gave no hint he would use his influence to help end the conflict.
“China is willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm,” was as far as the Chinese leader would go during a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
“Peace talks should be resumed as soon as possible, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides with reference to the U.N. Charter … seeking political resolution and constructing a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” he added, sitting next to Macron.
The French president arrived in China on Wednesday in the hope of pushing China to use its leverage with Russia to end the conflict, and to get Beijing to speak out against the Kremlin’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus.
During his private meeting with Xi, Macron raised Western concerns that Beijing will deliver weapons to China, according to a French diplomat with knowledge of the talks. But the French leader didn’t seem to get far.
“The president urged Xi not to make deliveries to Russia that would help its war against Ukraine. Xi said this war is not his,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the private session.
The talks — which an Elysée Palace official nonetheless described as “frank and constructive” — ultimately lasted an hour and a half.
Afterward, the action moved to a signing ceremony, where officials and business leaders inked several deals, including the sale of 160 Airbus aircraft. According to the Elysée, the Chinese government approved the purchase of 150 A320 Neo planes and 10 A350s — a delivery that was part of a €36-billion deal Airbus announced last year. The information contradicted previous information from an Elysée official, who said a new sale was being negotiated.
During the deal-signing ceremony, every Chinese minister and business executive bowed deeply to Xi before signing the contracts with their French counterparts.
Xi and Macron then stepped in for their joint appearance, billed as a “press conference with Communist characteristics” — essentially meaning no press questions allowed.
The two leaders’ contrasting styles were immediately apparent. Xi read his carefully scripted remarks while staring straight ahead before ceding to Macron. The French leader then proceeded to speak for roughly twice as long as his host — a protocol faux pas that members of Xi’s Chinese entourage noticed.
Xi himself at times looked impatient and annoyed as Macron continued speaking. The Chinese leader heaved several deep sighs and appeared uncomfortable as Macron addressed him directly while apparently ad-libbing on the Ukraine war and their joint responsibility to uphold peace.
Macron also appealed to Xi to explicitly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Speaking about peace and stability means talking about the war waged by Russia against Ukraine. You’ve made some important comments,” the French leader said. “This is a war that involves all of us because a member of the Security Council has decided to violate the U.N. charter. We cannot accept that.”
Macron and Xi spent one and a half hours in bilateral talks that were described as “frank and constructive” by an Elysée Palace official | POOL photo by Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
French lawmaker Anne Genetet, who also held talks Thursday with Chinese officials, admitted there were “no surprises” in the Chinese position on Ukraine, but argued it was still useful to lay some groundwork on the issue.
“It’s the beginning,” Genetet said. “There will be more talks and some private moments [between Xi and Macron]. Maybe we’ll get some other messages.”
Xi and Macron will head to the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday, where they will hold more talks and a private dinner.
However, in what will be read as a concession to the French, Xi did talk about the need for the warring parties to “protect victims including women and children,” which comes after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin over his role in illegally transferring Ukrainian children to Russia.
Xi didn’t explicitly mention Russia in his remarks, though. And in a move likely to irk U.S. officials, Xi also said that China and France should “resume exchanges between the legislative bodies and militaries.” He then included France in a common refrain that Chinese officials use to criticize the U.S.
“China and France shall continue to … oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation, joining hands in addressing all types of global challenges,” Xi said.
On Thursday, Xi also held talks with Macron and with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was invited by Macron to showcase European unity but who will not take part in many of the events between the Chinese and French leaders.
Indeed, von der Leyen held her own solo press conference as night fell on Thursday in Beijing. Unencumbered by the formalities of a state visit, the EU leader took questions from reporters and sent several pointed messages to Beijing.
She warned it against aiding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine: “Arming the aggressor is a clear violation of international law — he should never be armed,” she said. “This would indeed significantly harm the relationship between the European Union and China.”
And she touched a diplomatic third rail: Taiwan.
“Nobody should unilaterally change the status quo by force in this region,” she said, alluding to China’s threats toward the self-governing island. “The threat of the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen did echo Macron’s message, however, that China could play an important role in Ukraine, calling Beijing’s stance “crucial.”
She added: “We expect China will play its role and promote a just peace, one that respects Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.”
Clea Caulcutt and Jamil Anderlini reported from Beijing. Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is jetting off on an ambitious diplomatic mission to woo Beijing away from Moscow. Officials in Washington wish him luck with that.
France hopes to dissuade China’s leader Xi Jinping from getting any cozier with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and wants the Chinese instead to play a mediation role over the war in Ukraine.
However, it is unclear what leverage Macron has — and the backdrop to his three-day trip starting Tuesday isn’t easy. Europe continues to reel from the impact of cutting off trade ties to Russia and geopolitical tensions are ratcheting up between China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest economies.
The French president wants to play a more personal card with his Chinese counterpart, after drawing fierce criticism for hours of fruitless phone calls with Putin last year — an effort that failed to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Macron is expected to spend several hours in discussions with Xi, and the trip includes a visit to a city that holds personal value for the Chinese president.
“You can count with one hand the number of world leaders who could have an in-depth discussion with Xi,” said an Elysée advisor who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
But while expectations in France of a breakthrough are moderate, the view among other Western officials is even bleaker.
Given Macron’s failed attempts at playing a center-stage role in resolving conflicts, such as stopping the war in Ukraine or salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, there are doubts in the U.S. and elsewhere that this trip will deliver major results.
The White House has little expectation that Macron will achieve a breakthrough, according to three administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Xi is unlikely to act on Macron’s requests or curtail any of China’s assertive moves in the Pacific, the officials said.
White House aides ruefully recalled Macron’s failed attempts to insert himself as a peacemaker with Putin on the eve of the invasion more than a year ago and anticipate more of the same this time.
There is also some concern in the Biden administration about France’s potential coziness with China at a time when tensions between Washington and Beijing are at their highest in decades, even though the White House is supportive of the trip, the three officials said. There is no ill will toward Macron’s efforts in Beijing, they stressed.
But what might further complicate Macron’s endeavors is an emerging feud between the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is traveling with the president, and the Chinese.
Last Thursday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered a keynote address on EU-China relations at the European Policy Centre in Brussels | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
In a high-profile speech on EU-China relations Thursday, von der Leyen urged EU countries to “de-risk” from overdependency on China. She also implied that the EU could terminate the pursuit of a landmark trade deal with China, which was clinched in 2020 but subsequently stalled. Her remarks sparked swift blowback from Chinese diplomats. Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, said Friday he was “a little bit disappointed.”
“That speech contained a lot of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and the Chinese positions,” Fu told state-owned broadcaster CGTN.
The Europeans’ visit will also be scrutinized from a human rights perspective given China’s authoritarian pivot and alleged human rights abuses across the nation.
“President Macron and von der Leyen should not sweep the Chinese government’s deepening authoritarianism under the rug during their visit to Beijing,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “They should use their public appearances with Xi Jinping to express strong concerns over widespread rights abuses across China, heightened oppression in Hong Kong and Tibet, and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
Macron’s playbook
Speaking ahead of the visit to Beijing, the French leader said his aim was to “try and involve China as much as possible to put pressure on Russia” on topics such as nuclear weapons.
But will Macron’s charm work on Putin’s “best friend” Xi?
China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has burnished its ties with the nation, importing energy from Russia at a discount. Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader. Meanwhile, POLITICO and other media have reported that the Chinese have made shipments of assault weapons and body armor to Russia.
Western European leaders that were cozy with Moscow just before the war started are now calling for engagement with China, including Macron himself. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was in China just days before Macron’s arrival, saying that the world “must listen to its voice” on Russia and Ukraine.
During his visit, which aides have been discussing since at least November last year, Macron will spend several hours with Xi in Beijing, and accompany him to the city of Guangzhou. The Chinese leader’s father, Xi Zhongxun used to work there as Guangdong province governor.
“Altogether the president will spend six to seven hours in discussions with the Chinese leader. The fact that he will be the first French president to visit Guangzhou is also a personal touch, since President Xi’s father used to be a party leader there,” said the Elysee official cited earlier.
The French are hoping the time Macron spends privately with Xi will help win Chinese support on issues such as stopping Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine or halting the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.
It’s also expected that Macron will try to test Xi’s reaction to Russia’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus, a decision that flies in the face of China’s non-proliferation stance, barely a month after Beijing revealed its 12-point plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader | Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s absolutely fundamental to have moments of private encounters,” said Sylvie Bermann, France’s former ambassador to China. “Diplomacy is about playing the long game …With China, I don’t think it is easy to strike up relationships as Westerners. But maybe it means that we’ll be able to talk when the time comes.”
Despite the show of goodwill however, the French president will not hold back from sending “some messages” to Beijing on supporting Russia, particularly when it comes to arms deliveries, a senior French official said.
“We aren’t going to threaten, but send some warnings: The Chinese need to understand that [sending weapons] would have consequences for Europe, for us … We need to remind them of our security interests.” The official said Macron would steer clear of threatening sanctions.
Antoine Bondaz, China specialist at Paris’ Foundation for Strategic Research, questioned the emphasis on trying to bond with Xi. “That’s not how things work in China. It’s not France’s ‘small fry’ president, who spends two hours walking with Xi who will change things, China only understands the balance of power,” he said. “Maybe it works with Putin, who has spent over 400 hours with Xi in the last ten years, but Macron doesn’t know Xi.”
EU unity on show as trade takes center stage
Trade will also feature high on Macron’s priorities as he brings with him a large delegation of business leaders including representatives from EDF, Alstom, Veolia and the aerospace giant Airbus. According to an Elysée official speaking on condition of anonymity, a potential deal with European plane maker Airbus may be in the works, which would come after China ordered 300 planes for €30 billion in 2019.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna are also traveling with the president.
With the EU facing an emerging trade war between China and the U.S., the presence of von der Leyen, will add yet another layer of complexity to the mix. The French president said in March that he had “suggested to von der Leyen that she accompany him to China” so they could speak “with a unified voice.”
“I don’t have a European mandate, as France has its independent diplomacy — but I’m attached to European coordination,” he said.
A joint trip with the EU head sets him apart from Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor whom French officials criticized in private for hurrying to China for a day trip with Xi last year, focusing more on German rather than EU interests.
With von der Leyen by his side, Macron may well hope to be seen as the EU’s leading voice. In the U.S., the French president had tried that tactic and obtained some concessions on America’s green subsidies plan for the bloc.
In China, that card may be harder to play.
Clea Caulcutt reported in Paris, Stuart Lau in Brussels and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Russian law enforcement on Monday detained a young woman suspected of bombing a St. Petersburg cafe, in which a pro-Kremlin military blogger was killed and dozens injured on Sunday, according to media reports.
In a video from the interior ministry published by state news agency TASS, a woman presented as Darya Trepova can be heard saying she “brought a statuette” inside the cafe, which “later exploded.”
She said she had been arrested for “being present at the place” where the bombing occurred.
POLITICO was not able to independently verify whether Trepova’s statement was made under duress.
Trepova was reportedly detained for several days last year for taking part in a protest against the war in Ukraine on the day Russia’s full-scale invasion started.
Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by the St. Petersburg cafe blast, which also injured 25 people according to Reuters.
Tatarsky — whose real name was Maxim Fomin — was part of a group of high-profile influencers filing reports on the Ukraine war. He had more than half a million followers on Telegram.
According to AP, Tatarsky utilized “ardent pro-war rhetoric” in favor of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia’s top investigative body announced Monday it had opened a probe into the bombing, which it labeled a “high-profile murder.”
The state-controlled Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee called the bombing a “terrorist act” and accused Ukraine’s special service of planning the attack.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, tweeted that Russia had “returned to the Soviet classics: isolation … espionage … political repression.”
This is the second time a pro-Kremlin media figure has been killed on Russian soil since the invasion began.
Last August, Darya Dugina — who was under U.S. sanctions for spreading misinformation about the war — was killed in a car bombing.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Panaji: Goa Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik on Friday advised the need of storing rainwater as in the coming future war could take place due to scarcity of water.
Naik, speaking during the Assembly session, said that stored rainwater can be used for agriculture and horticulture purposes.
“Everywhere water shortage is taking place, there could be more scarcity. In the future war can happen due to shortage of water,” Naik, the former Goa Chief Minister, said.
He added that if rainwater is stored in the state, then it can be exported to Arab countries and get petrol from them.
“We get a significant amount of rain in the state, which is not utilised. If we construct dams and store the water for agriculture and other purposes, it will help us. We can even export the water to Arab countries and bring fuel from them. We get around 126-inch rain. But this water goes to the sea, we can bring it in use by constructing dams,” Naik said.
“My preference when dealing with an issue like this — which doesn’t strike me as particularly ideological — is to address members on a one-on-one basis and figure out what anxieties or concerns they might have,” Young said in a joint interview conducted with Kaine.
Kaine said he’s brought the topic up regularly in Democratic caucus meetings for a decade now, describing himself as a “Johnny one-note” on an issue he first took notice of in 2002 while serving as lieutenant governor of Virginia.
“Congress needs to own these responsibilities. Having a good bipartisan colleague on this just makes the difference,” Kaine said.
Since introducing their first joint war powers repeal bill in 2019, Kaine and Young have taken different tacks with their respective parties on the matter. Kaine said that his challenge hasn’t been winning support from fellow Democrats so much as grabbing the focus of the caucus amid a host of competing national security issues.
“It’s been a long crusade of Sen. Kaine’s,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who recalled his colleague “standing up in our caucus and bringing it up every couple of months.”
On Young’s side of the aisle, pro-repeal Republicans said the passage of time and the growing opposition to prolonged war within their party’s base made it easier to sell axing the authorizations. In addition, only a handful of senators who initially voted for war in Iraq remain in the chamber.
“Each decade we get beyond the end of the war, I think most people are finally figuring out the war’s over,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), describing Young as “very, very good” at rounding up GOP support for the effort.
Other Republican allies said Young’s experience as a former Marine lent credibility to his arguments for repealing the war powers.
“When it comes from Todd, who’s spent years there as an officer, I think it just means a little bit even more. It’s not like he’s a dove,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a repeal backer.
Wednesday’s repeal vote won over the entire Senate Democratic majority, in addition to 18 Republicans who ranged from centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to non-interventionist conservative Paul.
Should the Senate war powers repeal pass the House, the Biden administration has indicated the president would support it. But getting it to Biden’s desk requires House passage — and that won’t be easy. Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) wants to repeal and replace both the 2002 military force authorization and a broad one passed in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks, the latter of which still serves as the basis for counterterrorism activities around the world.
McCaul said this week he wants a “counterterrorism-focused AUMF without geographical boundaries” that would end after five years “so it’s not forever war stuff.”
But McCaul also has made clear that the ultimate decision rests with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the California Republican is already facing trouble navigating an issue that’s split his conference.
And the strategy Young employed to win over Senate Republicans might not work in the House: The Hoosier said he tailored his arguments depending on the member as he built a sufficient Republican bloc to deliver repeal.
Democrats took notice — especially Young’s colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee, which remains a rare occasionally bipartisan bastion on a bitterly divided Hill. Kaine described the Hoosier as “a natural partner,” while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said “he’s one of the folks who acts as a glue in the Senate.”
On his own side of the aisle, Young downplayed the idea that his work on war powers repeal created awkwardness with Senate GOP leaders, all of whom except National Republican Senatorial Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) ultimately opposed the legislation. (Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, still away from the chamber recuperating after a concussion, condemned the repeal vote on Tuesday.)
“In this job, we do what we believe is right and in the best interest of our constituents and the country,” said Young, who easily won a second term last fall.
Not every senior Senate Republican, however, took the approach of Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) — who observed of the repeal vote that “sometimes you just have to accept reality.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, spoke for GOP colleagues who fear the repeal of the war powers may only embolden U.S. enemies abroad.
“I’m also worried about how our adversaries will read this,” said Rubio, who opposed repeal. “Will this be used against us?”
Meanwhile, many of Kaine and Young’s colleagues might welcome them rejoining hands to go further still by revamping or even outright repealing the 2001 war powers authorization that McCaul is eyeing, which teed up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The duo said in this week’s interview that they’re open to such discussions, but acknowledge that needle will be a difficult one to thread.
“It’ll take some heavy lifting to get there,” Kaine said, suggesting that Wednesday’s vote might create “a little bit of momentum toward exploring how to make sure we have the right authorities.”
Young said he’d want to ensure any revisions to the 2001 war powers measure clarify there will be no gap in existing legal authorities to conduct necessary operations overseas, which he said many members view as a point of vulnerability.
For the moment, pro-repeal senators appear openly grateful to complete work on a substantive bill after the Democratic majority considered more than 10 GOP amendments. As Murphy put it, “people have been hungry for some meaty, bipartisan bills.”
“The country is war-weary and there’s an instinct, which is the correct one, that we can’t be at war forever,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “And there is a beautiful left-right coalition that understands that.”
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wasn’t alone in openly praising the architects of that coalition.
“Give Tim Kaine and Sen. Young credit,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
SRINAGAR: Seven northern states of the country, including Jammu & Kashmir, remain the highest contributors to the armed forces as they account for 72% of veer naris (war widows).
During a recent announcement, the Defence Minister disclosed that the seven northern states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu-Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh have a total of 10,521 veer naris out of the country’s 14,467, accounting for 72 percent.
“Punjab tops with 2,132 veer naris, which means that most of the soldiers belong to Punjab. Uttar Pradesh has 1,805 followed by Haryana with 1566,” said the Ministry of Defence in the Rajya Sabha on Monday while detailing the state-wise number of veer naris.
Rajasthan had 1,317 veer naris and Uttarakhand, located in the Himalayan region, stood fourth with 1,407. Meanwhile, Jammu & Kashmir UT remained ahead of several big states with 1,218 veer naris. The Ministry of Defence previously shared state-wise representation of troops in the Lok Sabha, revealing that north-western states including Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi, along with UTs of Chandigarh and J&K, collectively account for 21.88% of troops and junior commissioned officers (JCOs) in the Army.
JCOs are appointed from the enlisted troops. The total strength of troops and JCOs in the Army is 11.54 lakhs, out of which 2.52 lakhs are from north-western states. Among these, Punjab has the highest contribution with 89,893 troops and JCOs, which constitutes 7.78% of the total strength. However, the Army does not keep a record of the domicile of its current 43,000 officers. This information was revealed in the Lok Sabha, where it was disclosed that the IAF and Navy maintain such records.
Data from the 2011 Census suggests the collective population of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, J&K and Chandigarh constitutes just 7.47% of the country’s population.
Yet, as many as 20,483 (15.85%) of the 1.29 lakh IAF airmen belong to the north-western states. In the case of the Navy, the north-western states have a share of 19.36% among sailors. Overall, the three forces have 13, 41,944 jawans, JCOs, airmen and sailors. The north-western states contribute 2, 84,440 (21.19%) of these.(KNO)
