Two weeks ago I read a disheartening article in The New York Times written by Roger Cohen about French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Communist China from April 5 to 8.
The article was appropriately entitled “From Red Carpet to Doghouse: Macron Returns From China to Allied Dismay.” The article was accurately subtitled “Criticism of the French president’s performance in Beijing has been scathing [my emphasis] among some allies, ….”
Cohen described Macron’s visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “a tour little short of a love-fest [sic and my emphasis]” so that France could “sit at the table of the great powers in a world changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s emergence as an arbiter of global conflict.”
According to a “Sino-French declaration” issued at the conclusion of his state visit, it proclaimed that France now had a “‘global strategic partnership with China,’” which naively advocated for the “Chinese lexicon of a “‘multipolar’ world,” “freed of ‘blocs,’” “liberated from a [the] ‘Cold War mentality,’” and drumroll become “less reliant on the ‘extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar.’”
It sounds like Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping had a “good time” over there.
Unfortunately, Macron did not consider that the PRC was directly responsible for the spread of the Wuhan virus or Covid-19 by deliberately allowing tens of thousands of infected Chinese citizens to fly outside of Communist China throughout the world in March and April of 2020. Since then Covid-19 has caused the death of “almost seven million” people worldwide according to the World Health Organization.
Mon Dieu [my God], does this wannabe leader of the European Union have no empathy for the needless death and suffering of “almost seven million” people? I think so.
This “Sino-French declaration,” contained both harsh anti-NATO [i.e. “Cold War mentality” and “blocs”] and anti-American verbiage, especially concerning the downfall of the world’s reserve currency or U.S. dollar. In plain words, Macron sees the U.S. in decline.
When Macron made this joint “declaration” he obviously was oblivious or just indifferent to the rampant slave labor of the Muslim Uyghurs presently occurring in China’s far northwestern Xinjiang province, the 1950 invasion of Tibet (along with other “atrocities” and “mass genocide”), blatant South China Sea imperialism, and democracy’s tragic recent demise in Hong Kong.
And then there is the fact that Xi Jinping’s only true ally in all of east and south Asia is his alter ego, junkyard dog and mini-me: Kim Jong-un of despotic North Korea.
Mon Dieu [my God], does Macron indeed have a myopic view of Communist China’s bloody autocracy since 1949, which is truly an understatement? I think so.
The French president especially ignored the fact that the arch criminal, diabolical and world’s greatest mass murderer, Mao Zedong (aka the “Chairman of Death”), executed, murdered and starved to death “at least 45 million people” during his disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and “another one-and-a-half million” or more during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).
Then there is the high probability that Beijing may be preparing to invade democratic Taiwan in the near future, which produces “over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones.” I suppose that France does not need any semiconductors for its cars, airplanes, nuclear weapons, communications, computers, healthcare, transportation and green energy in order to guarantee its own “‘industrial sovereignty’?” I sincerely doubt it.
And please do not forget President Macron how Beijing directly supported the genocidal Pol Pot’s Khymer Rouge in Cambodia when they brutally murdered between 1.5 and 3 million people from 1975 to 1979.
Mon Dieu [my God], has Macron become totally indifferent to the French national motto of liberté [freedom], égalité [equality] and fraternité [brotherhood] of a suffering world? I think so.
Has Macron become totally indifferent to the history of Tibet, mainland China, Cambodia, the Uyghurs, Hong Kong and the five South China Sea nations of the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam along with the PRC’s next most likely imperial conquest: Taiwan. I think so.
Macron has become a hypocrite motivated by political self-interest, who has forsaken France’s revolutionary heritage. He has become the leader of just another status quo power so that France may once again “sit at the table of the great powers” of the world, and remain neutral in case of a future Sino-Taiwanese war. I definitely think so.
I also think that Macron may want to be Xi Jinping’s “man” in Europe and a “player” for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in a new Pax Sinica (Chinese Peace), which he believes might replace Pax Americana before 2035. What a sellout Macron has become to both NATO and the United States.
During his return flight to Paris on April 9 “in an interview with Politico and French journalists” Macron warned about Europe becoming “‘vassals’” of the U.S. in regard to Taiwan. However, he quickly retracted his backstabbing “faux pas” two days later at the Élysée Palace (French White House) stating that the “United States is our ally, with shared values.”
Fortunately, the United States does not share the “values” of duplicity and backstabbing.
I have nothing against the French people, but President Emmanuel Macron is not to be trusted. Guntram Wolff, the CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations insightfully stated, “When you leave Xi and immediately say Taiwan is none of our business it seems bizarre,” but he noted that “if you think Europe should give up on Taiwan, you immediately are asked, who else do you give up on?”
I highly suspect that the real Macron spoke in Beijing with his oblique admiration of “Communism (totalitarianism) with Chinese characteristics” and improving Sino-French relations while the duplicitous one spoke in Paris at the Élysée Palace on April 11. The question now is to what degree has Macron cozied up to Xi Jinping at the expense of Franco-American relations and NATO unity?
For Americans to ignore his three day “lovefest” with Xi Jinping would be the height of folly.
Unfortunately, Macron’s presidency does not end until May 13, 2027. However, what is more worrisome is that he could be elected for a third nonconsecutive time in 2032. Let us all hope that the French people never do this.
– Robert L. Maronic
