Armed with an army of literally drunk diplomats, and foreign policy texts which spell out basic errors in historical facts, Emmanuel Macron has visited China on a very friendly visit and proclaimed that Europe must reduce its dependence on the US. He also did other things. He made a commitment to China that France would not be hostile to it if China invades Taiwan. He also asked China to convince Russia back on the negotiating table for peace talks, even though such a table doesn’t even exist in the first place as Ukraine’s conditions for peace don’t need to be reiterated again: Russia must leave all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
The last time Macron did something similar to Vladimir Putin, weeks later, Putin invaded Ukraine. His visit to Putin didn’t serve as a deterrent but only emboldened the dictator to start a war. Now, Macron is even encouraging China to start a war against Taiwan, and in fact, as soon as Macron left, China conducted simulated air strikes on Taiwan and moved its fleet into Taiwanese waters. Literally, Macron is incentivising tyrants to start a war by giving up France’s deterrent for free.
Forever in history, Macron will remain known as a total disgrace for appeasing Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin as China prepares to launch a war against Taiwan and Russia ravages Ukraine in a genocidal war. He keeps showing a great sense of ignorance and outright stupidity on how the world works as he pushes with naive ideas that we can trust tyrants to grow their warring empires and that France can be a global power broker on its own. His recent propaganda flick with Xi Jinping screams delusions of grandeur and narcissistic disorder.
I feel the cringe in having to write some basic historical facts just to contradict the stupidity of what is supposedly a European statement. Global security and rule of law are guaranteed by the naval, air and military power of the United States and this power is the deterrent for tyrants and imperialist states preventing them from turning global politics into outright and warring imperialism. For Europe to take the role of the US it has to build the world’s biggest navy and the biggest air-force along with spending at least around 1 trillion US Dollars every year in defence spending.
This is not just about Taiwan, a small island in the east of China whose citizens have the right to self-determination. China’s warring imperialism will not end by taking over Taiwan. China’s geopolitical philosophy is that it feels entitled to be once again the “Middle Kingdom” of the world and the world’s leading superpower. If China becomes the world’s superpower, which it won’t, it will be able to dictate the international rules-based order. We can have many legitimate problems and grievances about the US, but only a fool or a drunk would prefer the international rules-based order to be influenced by tyrants rather than conserving and strengthening the alliance that already exists between liberal democracies. Macron should be working hard to get more members into our democratic club, and not supporting the growth of the opposing club whose interests go against our principles and values. And it should be obvious to any statesman that by strengthening China’s position abroad, our club will have less influence in the world.
Rhetorically speaking I can not understand how totally oblivious is Macron over his gross error of judgment, but I do understand that a narcissistic leader who fails at home would want to hold a big show abroad, and this probably explains a lot of his foreign policy. Macron got elected only to prevent Marie Le Pen from taking power, not because he was wanted. France has failed so far to produce a moderate political movement that can take power. There are too many extremes in French politics right now and Macron is only there because he is the least dangerous option. Having a narcissistic personality, Macron probably feels unfulfilled and unloved at home with his failure to garner local support especially when riots are taking place in Paris, practically every week. The respect that Macron lacks at home, he gets from abroad through tyrants.
Macron’s antics also remind us that in Europe right now we are desperate for European leaders who seek to strengthen Europe from within and abroad. We are very desperate.
Macron has ridiculed himself and France time and again and someone should talk some sense into him. The EU needs statesmanship in these testing times. Defense and technology cooperation is at stake simply because Europe’s leaders cannot understand the global power struggle. Leaders who have kept on insisting the EU should have it’s own military, failing to understand that many EU countries are already part of NATO which has well defined protocols, seasonal training for member forces and decades of experience and cooperation between these forces. How can EU states already part of NATO work on “another” military alliance? It’s absurd. Ultimately Europe’s security has always been guaranteed by the U.S. and the U.K. (even in its diminished role as a World power but still miles ahead of the rest in terms of experience, expertise, special forces, professionalism and tactics). The U.K and the EU need to wean off their economic dependence on China and to a certain extent the U.S. – The EU and U.K. should be firm about the American government and it’s drive to subsidize industry potentially taking business away from the old continent. But that’s foreign policy and with leaders like Macron, I cannot see this happen which means autocratic states like China will steamroll through their ambitions.