China’s interests to determine actions, but door left ajar in Beijing for European leaders

Emmanuel Macron’s red carpet treatment in Beijing was the most lavish and his tone conciliatory while Ursula von der Leyen was just about met at the airport as she arrived to deliver a flinty message to Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Was this a good cop, bad cop routine, or was Xi playing them off against one another, using Macron’s susceptibility to flattery to humiliate Von der Leyen?

In agreeing to tag along with Macron on his state visit to China, the European Commission president was always going to be playing a supporting role. But her participation served the purposes of both sides as China and the European Union renegotiate their relationship in the light of a changed geopolitical landscape.

Von der Leyen set out a hawkish position that criticised Beijing’s treatment of European companies

As the United States moves towards a policy of containing China by hobbling its access to technology and targeting its firms for sanctions, Beijing hopes to dissuade the European Union from following Washington down that path.

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In his meetings with Macron and Von der Leyen, Xi pointedly said the China-EU relationship should not be “dependent on or dictated by any third party”.

Von der Leyen set out a hawkish position that criticised Beijing’s treatment of European companies, warned of the national security risks associated with technology transfer to China and stressed the importance of the EU’s shared values with the US. While she spoke of “de-risking” the economic relationship with China, Macron emphasised the scope for developing and deepening it.

What we are witnessing is the start of an internal European negotiation towards a new strategy now that, as Von der Leyen indicated in Beijing, the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is dead.

Macron’s message to Xi in bringing Von der Leyen along was that ‘if you don’t deal with me, you will end up dealing with her’

Xi will be pleased to observe that even the hawkish commission president rejected economic decoupling and stressed the importance of Europe developing an independent China policy. One Beijing-based foreign policy analyst suggested that Macron’s message to Xi in bringing Von der Leyen along was that “if you don’t deal with me, you will end up dealing with her”.

The French president also believes that Xi is the only world figure who can persuade Russia’s Vladimir Putin to change course in Ukraine.

Xi agreed to work with France to support any peace plan for Ukraine on the basis of international law but China’s interests will determine its actions. This means that Beijing will not support any action aimed at the defeat or humiliation of Russia so any peace deal would require compromises from Kyiv as well as Moscow.