Chinese Peril

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacks China in Berlin speech
BBC News

Mike Pompeo has held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during his visit to Berlin.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned of the dangers posed by Russia and China, and called on Nato to grow and confront "the challenges of today".
On a visit to Berlin, Mr Pompeo said methods used by China to suppress its own people would be "horrifyingly familiar" to East Germans.
And he accused Russia of invading its neighbours and crushing dissent.
He laughed off comments from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said recently that Nato was "brain dead".
But Mr Pompeo told reporters: "Seventy years on... it needs to grow and change. It needs to confront the realities of today and the challenges of today.
"If nations believe that they can get the security benefit without providing Nato the resources that it needs, if they don't live up to their commitments, there is a risk that Nato could become ineffective or obsolete."

A Nato military exercise in 2018 -- the biggest since Cold War.

US President Donald Trump has frequently accused European Nato members of failing to provide their fair share of military spending and of relying too heavily on the US for their defence.
Nato celebrates its 70th anniversary at a summit in London next month.
What else did Mr Pompeo say?
He was speaking in Berlin a day before the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Referring to that event, Mr Pompeo said "the West -- all of us -- lost our way in the afterglow of that proud moment".
He said the US and its allies should "defend what was so hard-won... in 1989" and "recognise we are in a competition of values with un-free nations".
"We thought we could divert our resources away from alliances, and our militaries. We were wrong," he said.
"Today, Russia -- led by a former KGB officer once stationed in Dresden [President Vladimir Putin] - invades its neighbours and slays political opponents."

A rallying cry - but not everyone agrees
In Berlin to remember the end of the first Cold War, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to be declaring the outbreak of a second.

In insisting upon a "competition of values" between the "free nations" on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, his was a message of ideological struggle.
He disparaged entirely the idea of Moscow being a partner for the West. 

Mr Pompeo clearly saw this speech as a rallying cry to the West. 

He struck a hawkish tone but many will wonder: What exactly is the fundamental US view?
Trump seems much less antagonistic towards Moscow and does not appear to share the strategic framework in which his secretary of state places relations between Moscow and Beijing, and the West.
It is clear that even many of Washington's allies do not fully share Mr Pompeo's analysis. 

And Moscow and Beijing are eager to exploit such tensions and divisions.
Relations between Washington and Moscow plummeted after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from neighbouring Ukraine in 2014.
Ties were further strained when US intelligence agencies concluded that the Kremlin had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Despite this, Trump and Putin have appeared to be on good terms personally. 

On Friday, Trump said he was considering attending the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow next May, after an invitation from the Russian leader.
Mr Pompeo accused the Chinese Communist Party of "shaping a new vision of authoritarianism" and warned the German government against using Chinese telecom giant Huawei to build its fifth-generation data network (5G).

What did Mr Macron say?
Interviewed by the Economist, the French president said he saw a waning commitment to the alliance by its main guarantor, the US.
He warned European members that they could no longer rely on the US to defend the alliance, established at the start of the Cold War to bolster Western European and North American security.

He cited the recent failure by Washington to consult Nato before pulling forces out of northern Syria.
Mr Macron also questioned whether Nato was still committed to collective defence.
Speaking on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a key ally, said she disagreed with Mr Macron's "drastic words".
Speaking in Berlin alongside visiting Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, she acknowledged there were problems, but said she did not think "such sweeping judgements are necessary".

In rare move, French warship passes through Taiwan Strait

By Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart

Tugboat escorts French Navy frigate Vendemiaire on arrival for a 5-day goodwill visit at a port in Metro Manila, Philippines March 12, 2018. 

WASHINGTON -- A French warship passed through the strategic Taiwan Strait this month, U.S. officials told Reuters, a rare voyage by a vessel of a European country that is likely to be welcomed by Washington but increase tension with Beijing.
The passage, which was confirmed by China, is a sign that U.S. allies are increasingly asserting freedom of navigation in international waterways near China. 

It could open the door for other allies, such as Japan and Australia, to consider similar operations.
The French operation comes amid increasing tensions between the United States and China. 

Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.
Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a French military vessel carried out the transit in the narrow waterway between China and Taiwan on April 6.
One of the officials identified the warship as the French frigate Vendemiaire and said it was shadowed by the Chinese military. 

The official was not aware of any previous French military passage through the Taiwan Strait.
The officials said that as a result of the passage, China notified France it was no longer invited to a naval parade to mark the 70 years since the founding of China’s Navy. 

Warships from India, Australia and several other nations participated.
China said on Thursday it had lodged “stern representations” with France for what it called an “illegal” passage.
Colonel Patrik Steiger, the spokesman for France’s military chief of staff, declined to comment on an operational mission.
The U.S. officials did not speculate on the purpose of the passage or whether it was designed to assert freedom of navigation.

MOUNTING TENSIONS
The French strait passage comes against the backdrop of increasingly regular passages by U.S. warships through the strategic waterway. 

Last month, the United States sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the Taiwan Strait.
The passages upset China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory. 

Beijing has been ramping up pressure to assert its "sovereignty" over the island.
Chen Chung-chi, spokesman for Taiwan’s defense ministry, told Reuters by phone the strait is part of busy international waters and it is “a necessity” for vessels from all countries to transit through it. He said Taiwan’s defense ministry will continue to monitor movement of foreign vessels in the region.
“This is an important development both because of the transit itself but also because it reflects a more geopolitical approach by France towards China and the broader Asia-Pacific,” said Abraham Denmark, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.
The transit is a sign that countries like France are not only looking at China through the lens of trade but from a military standpoint as well, Denmark said.
Last month, France and China signed deals worth billions of euros during a visit to Paris by Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. 

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to forge a united European front to confront Chinese advances in trade and technology.
“It is important to have other countries operating in Asia to demonstrate that this is just not a matter of competition between Washington and Beijing, that what China has been doing represents a broader challenge to a liberal international order,” Denmark, who is with the Woodrow Wilson Center think-tank in Washington, added.
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.

Chinese promises never delivered

Europe Holds Summit With China, Less Naively This Time

By Steven Erlanger

Li Keqiang, center, with Donald Tusk, the European Council president, left, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, on Tuesday in Brussels.

BRUSSELS — The European Union, which does more than 1.5 billion euros a day in two-way trade with China, came late to the industrial, political and security threats China poses. 

For a long time, Europe saw China as another Japan, only with some human-rights issues.
But with the outspoken ambitions of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and continuing battles over technology transfer, closed markets and industrial espionage, that is changing.
On Tuesday, the European Union and China met in Brussels for their 21st annual summit. 

The challenge for Europe is to forge a united front in the face of a China that only last month it labeled an “economic competitor” in critical industrial fields and a “systemic rival” politically.
The mood is certainly tougher now, especially after Italy last month became the first Group of 7 country to join China’s vast Belt and Road project, which the French analyst François Heisbourg described as “China’s own concept on how to organize the global space.”
In difficult negotiations, the Europeans had a hard time finding agreement on a joint statement with the Chinese that is serious about substance. 

They succeeded up to a point, but the commitments made by China are more about further talks than specific actions.
Donald Tusk, the European Council president, pointed to China’s agreement to discuss reform of the World Trade Organization’s rules on industrial subsidies, which he termed a “breakthrough.”
But Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the bloc’s bureaucracy as president of the European Commission, said tartly that “progress is slower than we like.’’
The Europeans did succeed, by threatening not to sign a joint statement, in getting a promise to conclude a long-discussed bilateral investment deal by the end of 2020, which would improve market access, and a "promise" to limit forced technology transfers.

The port of Trieste, Italy, could benefit from a new economic accord between Italy and China.

But a senior European official also pointed to a statement finally reached after the last summit, in Beijing in July, which was full of promises not delivered, especially on issues like investment ground rules and market reciprocity, which are sources of tension now.
If anything, there has been backsliding and more vivid violations of human rights, like the detention of foreigners and the settlement camps for Uighurs.
If China is now a “systemic rival,” the joint statement did not reflect that new view, but tried to preserve a sense of partnership, said Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels.
Last month, President Emmanuel Macron of France said that the European Union had finally woken up to China. 

“China plays on our divisions,” he said. 

“The period of European naïveté is over.”
But the bloc was slow to respond to Belt and Road, just as it was slow to react to China’s effort in 2012 to sow divisions on the Continent with its “16 plus 1” initiative — itself and 16 Central and Eastern European nations.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy and Xi Jinping in Rome last month. Italy has become the first Group of 7 country to sign on to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.

They are to hold their own meeting starting Thursday in Croatia, and Li will go there as well. 

At the end of the month, many European Union member states will also go to Beijing for a Belt and Road forum.
The 16 plus 1 group contains 11 European Union member states, five of which use the euro, and four of which are formal candidates for membership in the bloc. 

And Greece is reported to be looking to join.
All have been eager for Chinese investment, which carries fewer demands, if higher risks, than Western banks or development funds. 

And already countries with significant financial ties to China, like Greece and Italy, have blocked European consensus on resolutions condemning Chinese behavior.
“China will attempt to use every opportunity, including the E.U.-China Summit, and the 16 plus 1 meeting in Croatia, to pit Europeans against each other and against the United States,’’ said Jamie Fly, the director of the Asia and Future of Geopolitics Programs for the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
‘‘It would be foolish and shortsighted to take the bait,” he added.
Avoiding that may not be easy. 

Trump sees the European Union as an economic “foe.” 

On Tuesday, Trump threatened an additional $11 billion in tariffs in response to European subsidies to Airbus. 

“The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!’’ Trump tweeted.

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of EU products! The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!

China, on the other hand, works hard, despite recent conflicts, to be attractive to European businesses, both for investment and trade. 

“China uses honey while the U.S. is using vinegar,” said Mr. Heisbourg, the French analyst. 

“The U.S. is pushing Europe in China’s direction.”
China also emphasizes its agreement with Europe on issues Trump has opposed. 

Those include climate change, as well as commitment to the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump has abandoned.
The relationship is crucial for both Brussels and Beijing, and the honey is difficult to resist. 

The European Union is China’s biggest trading partner, and China is the bloc’s second-biggest after the United States.

Trucks at Trieste’s port this month. The northeast Italian city could become a terminus for Chinese goods shipped through the Suez Canal.

Ivan Hodac, the former head of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, which has major interests in China, says the new European wariness is coming late.
“The E.U. is divided,” Mr. Hodac said. 

“Each country has its own financial interest. So long as there is no free trade agreement or investment deal with China,” he said, Europe is vulnerable. 

“And the Americans need to understand we are really in it together.”
Washington and Brussels share similar goals with China. 

But Trump has favored trying to reach his own deals with China while also, the Europeans argue, undermining the W.T.O., whose rules China has at least "promised" to obey.
There are also new security concerns, with the United States warning allies away from Huawei, the large Chinese telecommunications company, as the world moves to 5G wireless networks.
With defense and industry increasingly dependent on 5G and artificial intelligence, areas where China is innovating and investing heavily, Washington and other allies, like Germany and France, see dangers.
Yet Huawei is cheaper than its competitors, attractive to smaller countries and central European ones, and there is no large American alternative.
Nor is there a European Union version of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, an interagency group that carefully screens Chinese and other foreign investments to protect national security. 

There is a new investment screening mechanism by Brussels, but it has no enforcement framework.

Italian Horse

Italy is playing with fire when it comes to China

• Italy is to be the first major European economy to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative
• The move exacerbates tensions between Italy and its neighbors.
• France wants a coordinated, united approach to China.

By Holly Ellyatt

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte meets Chinese dictator Xi Jinping before to sign trade agreements on Belt and Road Initiative, on March 23, 2019 in Rome, Italy.

Italy’s decision to be the first major European economy to join China’s massive investment and infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), can only exacerbate tensions between Italy and its neighbors.
On Saturday, Xi Jinping and the Italian government signed a non-binding agreement for Italy to join China’s trade route and inked a total of 29 deals worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) across an array of sectors. Italy hopes the project will boost its sluggish economy but the deal raised more than just eyebrows in Europe and the U.S. with officials criticizing the move.
The BRI is something of a 21st century Silk Road with the sea and land route stretching from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and now into Europe — with Italy being the first Group of Seven (G-7) country to sign up to the global infrastructure and development project.
China sees the BRI as a way to export more of its goods to lucrative markets; its critics see the initiative as a vanity project that increases indebtedness among its participating countries. 

The BRI gives Chinese companies unfettered access to other markets and economies, but that its own is still largely closed to foreign investment.
At the heart of concerns is that the BRI is seen as a way for China to spread its geopolitical influence — an acute concern for a Europe increasingly uncertain of its place in the world.
As such, Italy’s latest move has been seen as undermining Europe’s ability to compete with China’s economic might. 

Italy’s bilateral deal with China also came a day after French President Emmanuel Macron called for a coordinated European approach to the superpower.
Italy’s anti-establishment coalition government has already clashed with Brussels over immigration and its spending plans. 

Its deal with China is likely to be another source of tension.
“It’s clear that this does undermine Europe’s and the West’s ability to stand up to China,” Federico Santi, senior Europe analyst at Eurasia Group, told CNBC Tuesday. 

“This will be another source of friction between Italy and Europe which, ultimately, will be to the detriment of Italy itself,” he added, although he noted that the terms of the agreement between Italy and China remained to be seen.
Italy and China have played down concerns. 

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio told CNBC that the accord was “nothing to worry about” and Xi tried to assuage concerns in Europe too, saying on Tuesday during a visit to France that “cooperation is bigger than competition between China and Europe.”
Other EU leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron are keen for the EU to have a tougher approach to China and stress the need for reciprocal commercial ties. 

On Tuesday, Macron said while he wants the EU to deepen its ties with China, there must be a united European front when it comes to the superpower.
To emphasize this point, he invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for talks with Xi in Paris on Tuesday. 

There, Macron urged China to “respect the unity of the European Union and the values it carries in the world.” 

Juncker stressed that European companies should find “the same degree of openness in the China market as Chinese ones find in Europe.”
Merkel, for her part, said that Europeans wanted to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative but that “must lead to a certain reciprocity, and we are still wrangling over that bit.”
As Macron said in Brussels last week, “the time of European naïveté is ended” as he called for the EU. For many years we had an uncoordinated approach and China took advantage of our divisions.”
With Italy pursuing its own deal with China regardless of its neighbors’ concerns, China could be able to make the most of those divisions again.

China tries to bribe France to break with America

By Tom Rogan

Beware of Xi Jinping bearing gifts. 

When Xi opens his wallet, it's never with a simple economic agenda.
This bears relevance in light of Xi's announcement in Paris on Tuesday that China will buy 300 jets from Airbus. 

That purchase order will benefit the French economy to the tune of around $34 billion. 

But while China says this purchase is designed to strengthen its domestic aviation sector, that's only the pretense. 

What this deal is really about is encouraging France to separate from the U.S. on matters affecting Chinese foreign policy.
The most obvious Chinese interest here is getting France to oppose U.S. efforts to constrain the Chinese telecommunications firm, Huawei. 

To its credit, the Trump administration has taken a harsh stance on Huawei, warning allies that if they allow the Chinese intelligence cutout to enter their telecommunications networks, they will lose out on U.S. intelligence support and economic opportunities.
But it's not just about Huawei. 

China also wants to prevent France from following Britain in supporting U.S. efforts to ensure the Indo-Pacific region remains open and free. 

As more nations support U.S. efforts to challenge China's imperial aggression in that region, China finds it harder to retain international legitimacy. 

China is also weakened by its reliance on allies of weak interest and political toxicity, such as Pakistan, and by its own domestic conduct because that legitimacy deficit weakens Xi's political influence, economic interests, and military power. 

Although, it must be said, China's cultivation of top research institutions such as Harvard University earns Beijing some political cover.
The U.S. cannot sit idle here. 

It must consolidate Emmanuel Macron to oppose even Xi's marginal interests. 

It's a relevant concern in that some European nations are already yielding to Xi. 

Italy, for example, just last week joined Beijing's Belt and Road initiative. 

That program is the cornerstone of Xi's effort to reshape international economics away from the U.S. free trade orbit, and into a mercantilism-feudal system with China at the top.
Fortunately, there is good cause for American optimism here. 

France is a better American ally than Italy (Rome should face U.S. economic retaliation for bowing to Xi), and recognizes the value of America's rule-of-law based economic system over China's cronyism. 

Xi is likely to be disappointed here.
Still, this vast Airbus purchase is a clear window to Chinese strategy. 

Xi is willing to spend big to try and buy friends.

Behind the Niceties of Chinese Leader’s Visit, France Is Wary

By Adam Nossiter

President Emmanuel Macron of France with Xi Jinping at a news conference in Paris on Monday.
PARIS — France rolled out red carpets and honor guards for Xi Jinping on Monday, but beneath the pomp, there were wary statements about China’s influence by his host, President Emmanuel Macron.
With Italy last week breaking from Europe in signing on to China’s global infrastructure project for moving Chinese goods, Mr. Macron has made it clear that a unified European response, in his view, is critical in dealing with the Chinese hegemon.
He reiterated that sentiment Monday as Xi listened in a deal-signing ceremony at the presidential Élysée Palace, where more than a dozen commercial and governmental treaties were signed worth billions of euros.
Earlier Mr. Macron welcomed Xi at a symbol of French imperial history and power, the Arc de Triomphe.
Beneath the tight smiles and brisk handshakes, Mr. Macron’s sharpened words resonated as the template for France’s attitude toward China, a country that floods France with luxury-shopping tourists but competes directly with it in a principal arena of mutual geopolitical interest, Africa.
Mr. Macron, keenly aware of France’s small position in the Chinese market — between 1 and 2 percent of imports — talks about Europe when he talks about China. 

Germany’s position is nearly five times as large.
After saying last week that the era of European “naïveté was over,” and that China had “played on our divisions,” he emphasized to the Chinese leader Monday that in talking to France, he was talking to Europe.
It was not immediately clear how France had avoided the “naïveté” Mr. Macron criticized, nor how it had reinforced the multilateral unified European approach he promulgated, in signing the French deals with the Chinese on Monday.
Still, unlike Italy, France has not signed on to China’s global goods-moving project, which it calls “One Belt One Road.”
Making reference to Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s famous declaration in 1964 that recognizing China was a matter of “reason” and “evidence,” Mr. Macron said Monday at the Élysée that those same words applied to the “choice” of the 21st century: the “relationship between Europeans and Chinese.”
De Gaulle was bucking the United States when he uttered those words, and Mr. Macron, 55 years later, was doing something of the same.
Appealing to China as a partner, he made a pointed reference to the United States under President Trump, who has repudiated multinational agreements like the Paris Climate accord and Iran nuclear deal.
“The order of things has been shaken,” the French president said, and “faced with the risk of the destruction of the multilateral order, France and China have a responsibility,” as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
“No country can redefine the rules of the international game,” Mr. Macron asserted, saying that France, like China, would stick to an agreement with Iran, and saying the two countries had made progress on the subject of climate change, and on the lifting of import restrictions for French beef and poultry.
Earlier French and Chinese officials and executives signed agreements on aeronautics — the Chinese are buying 300 airplanes from Airbus — and on space, banking and investment, shipbuilding and cultural exchanges.
On human rights violations in China, a subject that preoccupies French media but not official discourse or French business, Mr. Macron made only a hurried reference. 

Xi is visiting at a time when Galeries Lafayette, the emblematic French department store, is projecting a rapid expansion in China, which represents a third of the world market for luxury goods.
Jet-lagged Chinese tourists are bussed directly from the airport to the Galeries Lafayette store in central Paris, and the Rue Saint Honoré, a thoroughfare studded with luxury shops, routinely decks itself out for Chinese New Year.
The Chinese have invested in a wide scattering of French sectors, including wine, hotels, and industrial food production, including milk. 

France was the recipient of 9 percent of Chinese investments in the European Union in 2018; the Chinese have bought more than 150 wineries in Bordeaux, and China is the top export market for Bordeaux wine. 

The Chinese push into that culturally symbolic sector has created some backlash, but not enough to stop French owners from selling their properties.
With Xi silently listening Monday Mr. Macron said that Europe had never considered individual rights as “culturally specific,” and that its preoccupation remained for “the respect of fundamental and individual rights.” 

He said that the two had “had frank exchanges” on the subject.
But French analysts of relations with China said Monday that commercial relations were the real subject of preoccupation. 

“It’s the question of reciprocity,” said Jean-Philippe Béja of Sciences-Po, the research university. “We’ve been open towards trade and investment, and the Chinese have never let us enter their state procurements process.”
Europeans had also become more aware, and wary, of technology transfers and investments that “help the Chinese government develop its potential, and in the case of artificial intelligence it’s about control, and exporting control,” said Mr. Béja, referring to advances in Chinese government surveillance of its own citizenry.
“We’re more fearful than the other” members of the European Union about Chinese power and hegemony, said François Godement, an expert at the Institut Montaigne research center in Paris. “China is pushing its own pawns,” he said, particularly in parts of Africa where for decades French dominance has been undisputed.
Mr. Macron insisted Monday that France and China were “not strategic rivals” in Africa, though he said the two nations could be “much more important partners,” appearing to reflect a worry about Chinese investment on the continent.

Macron’s Africa visit reveals determination to weaken China’s grip on the continent

• French president Emmanuel Macron has just completed a trip to several African nations.
• A number of education and business partnerships were announced.
• Macron views African development as key to France’s global ambition.

By Chanel Monteine

(From L) French president Emmanuel Macron, Kenya president Uhuru Kenyatta and DR Congo president Felix Tshisekedi listen during the One Planet Summit on March 14, 2019, in Nairobi.

French President Emmanuel Macron embarked on a four-day charm offensive across the Horn of Africa last week, stopping off in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. 

The trip is largely seen as a bid to cement new ties in a region where China’s influence has been growing fast.
In the first visit by a French president to Kenya since its independence in 1963, Macron concluded his trip with a bang, announcing an estimated 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) worth of deals with the East African powerhouse.
While specifics remain obscure, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta confirmed in a statement Thursday that an agreement with a “French consortium” had been reached on a series of major works to boost Kenya’s transport network, including the construction of a commuter rail line linking the Kenyan capital with its central railway station.
Accompanied by some of France’s corporate giants­ — including Danone, EDF, GE Alstom and Total Group — Macron’s message was quite clear.
“The intent is indeed to open a new partnership in economy,” Macron said in a joint press conference with Kenyatta on Wednesday. 

“Now what we want to do, especially with our delegation of companies, is to be part of your new growth agenda…This is how France could be a long term, credible economic partner,” he added.
Both sides expressed keen intent to turn this visit into a long-term affair with cooperation spanning beyond business and including a series of environmental and educational alignments of their interests.
However, some of the local reaction was less enthusiastic. 

Twitter was flooded with adverse reactions to Macron’s visit. 

One Tweet read: “People like Macron are the real stumbling blocks to the development in Africa”.

Uhuru Kenyatta
✔@UKenyatta
· Mar 13, 2019
I am delighted to host my friend H.E. President @EmmanuelMacron of France at State House, Nairobi in his historic visit to Kenya. Kenya and France enjoy a cordial relationship that has helped spur growth in different areas for the benefit of our people | #KenyaFranceRelations

Why this France-Africa push?
One clear goal for Macron is to curtail the influence of Beijing.
Macron is wooing African counterparts beyond traditional allies in non-Francophone Africa, such as Ethiopia and Kenya. 

This marks a significant effort to assert France’s competitive edge in a region where China’s grip runs deep.
“France has been competing with China across Africa now for a while”, Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Director of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, told CNBC on Thursday.
“For a lot of French companies this has meant fierce business with deals often being signed behind closed doors,” added Cabestan who also acts as a member of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China in Hong Kong.
Going from an almost non-existent engagement with the continent pre-2000s, China is now the region’s largest economic partner and nation creditor.
Figures from a 2015 McKinsey report estimate China’s trade with Africa stood at over $185 billion. In comparison, France’s trade with the region was estimated at a significantly lower figure of $57 billion.
The same report claimed that the number of Chinese firms in Africa is two to nine times the official count.
In Kenya, China fronted an estimated $4 billion to build the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, Kenya’s largest infrastructure project, while in Ethiopia the giant was the financial muscle behind the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, reportedly worth $3.4 billion.
These investments reflect how Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have taken the lead as some of the most important partners in China’s “Belt and Road” reach for global influence.
“Belt and Road” is often described as a 21st century trading route linking China to Eastern Europe and Africa. 

It is made up of a “belt” of overland corridors and a maritime “road” of shipping lanes.
Macron had decided early on to place Africa as a top priority, a directive he clearly gave to France’s 170 ambassadors in his first foreign policy address in 2017.
“It is in Africa that the future of the world will largely play out”, he boldly stated.
Macron has wasted no time in implementing his plan. 

He swiftly launched the first ever Presidential Council for Africa, his very own advisory squad on France-Africa relations, and actioned his charm offensive blueprint with an initial trip to West Africa in July, and now East Africa.
But aside from curtailing Chinese dominance, a closer look at the data reveals the region is growing in economic importance. 

In 2017, Ethiopia became France’s third biggest market with French exports soaring to a record high of over 830 million euros.
The number of French companies in Kenya has almost tripled over the past five years. 

The likes of Peugeot, L’Oréal, Accor, Schneider Electric and Danone have all set up a regional base, reflecting Kenya’s growing image as a place to do business.

Can France beat China?
At first glance, the picture for Paris is bleak. 

France is no match for China’s deep pockets and economic might. 

But a closer look reveals a subtle shift in dynamics that could give Macron an upper hand.
In the first instance, it appears China’s approach to doing business with Africa has quietly shifted. Breaking with a tradition of doubling up, China announced in August that it would not be expanding its financial commitment to the region. 

Beijing’s financial pledge would instead cautiously remain at its previous level of $60 billion in 2015, perhaps a symptom of the Chinese economic slowdown.
Additionally, some African countries appear to have a greater willingness to do business with countries other than China and Macron appears to be taking advantage of that trend.
“Domestic politics is also a big factor here,” Cabestan told CNBC.
Ethiopia’s gradual return to democracy is creating distance with China and realigning interests with France.
Meanwhile, Kenya is also keen to diversify from its overt dependence on China. 

“Kenya, like many other countries in the region, has a big debt to China and there is certainly a willingness to rebalance their foreign relations”, Cabestan said.
Seemingly playing on these dynamics, Macron made his pitch clear on arrival in Djibouti. 

“French companies can offer a respectful partnership…one which will not bring on excessive, unsustainable debts and favors the development of local jobs”.
Macron bolstered his charm offensive with a strong soft power component. 

He pledged to support the development of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage and several higher education partnerships, while pushing an environmental alignment with Kenya, whose energy mix is 75% renewables.
In sum, “Macron may be able to out charm China, because of his youth, his style, France’s image, but France is not going to replace China ”, Cabestan told CNBC.
Instead France “will more actively compete with China”, he added.

What now?
Macron’s push in Africa reflects his drive to project France as a global power which will likely continue especially as he faces domestic challenges to his legitimacy.
Beijing will likely be using the resources at its disposal to maintain a leading position even as its partners warm up to France. 

How and when China will choose to flex its muscles remains to be seen.
What’s certain for now though, according to Cabestan, is that as long as there is tension with Washington, “the Chinese will be playing nice with Europe”, and the wider relation between the EU and China “will get more complicated”.

Rogue Nation

France, Australia call on China to observe rules
By Trevor Marshallsea 

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, presents the Legion d’Honneur award to Australian war veteran William Mackay in Sydney, Wednesday, May 2, 2018. Macron is on a three-day visit to Australia. 

SYDNEY — French President Emmanuel Macron and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday issued a reminder to China to respect a rules-based order in the South Pacific amid concerns about Beijing’s growing influence in the region.
Macron’s comments came during a three-day visit to Australia, during which the two nations signed a range of agreements, including a pact to strengthen defense ties.
The two leaders were also expected to discuss China’s growing influence in the South Pacific. Australia has become concerned about increasing Chinese investment in infrastructure projects in the area, especially reports — denied by Beijing — that it wants establish a permanent military base in Vanuatu. 

This follows China’s contentious claiming of islands in recent years in the South China Sea.
Macron was scheduled to depart on Thursday for New Caledonia, a French-controlled island near Vanuatu, which will hold a referendum in November on breaking away from France’s protection and becoming a republic.
While Macron and Turnbull did not specifically confirm they discussed China during their Sydney meetings. 

But when asked about Beijing’s South Pacific push at a joint news conference, the two leaders were eager to stress the need for lawful development in the area.
“China’s rise is very good news for everybody. It’s good for China itself, its middle classes, and it’s good for global growth, and regional growth,” Macron said. 

“What’s important is to preserve a rules-based development in the region, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, and to preserve the necessary balances in the region.”
“And it’s important not to have any hegemony in the region,” he said.
Turnbull said the economic rise of China was made possible “by a ruled-based order in our region”.
“We welcome further Chinese investment in our region. We welcome the benefits of the growth of China. But of course we are committed to the maintenance of the rules-based international order, to good governance, strong standards, that will enable us all to continue this remarkable arc of prosperity that has been enabled by that rule of law,” Turnbull said.
Turnbull cited an oft-used quote from former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew in pushing for mutual respect among nations in Asia, saying “big fish cannot eat little fish, and little fish cannot eat shrimps.” 

Macron added: “And especially New Caledonian shrimps.”
France is the only European nation with direct territorial links to Pacific region countries, which play a role in its defense building. 

It has more than 1.5 million citizens and 8,000 military personnel spread across several territories in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Macron said he was keen for France to build a broader strategic relationship with Australia. 

Already, a French company Naval Group is building Australia’s new fleet of 12 submarines at a facility in Adelaide, under a deal worth $36.3 billion.
Also as part of Macron’s visit, France and Australia signed pacts to strengthen military ties, both through cooperation in maritime activities and the establishment of an annual Franco-Australian defense industry symposium.
Macron also expressed a desire for France to be “at the heart” of the Indo-Pacific region.
“I believe we have one shared goal, that is to turn our two countries to place them at the heart of a new axis, an Indo-Pacific axis,” Macron said.
Asked about growing tensions about Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, Macron said that regardless of Trump’s May 12 decision a new agreement should be negotiated with Teheran.
Macron, who told the United Nations last September that the current deal was not sufficient, said it should be broadened to address three new main areas — Iran’s nuclear activity after the current deal expires in 2025; improvements in the monitoring and controlling of Iran’s domestic nuclear activity, and to have better containment of Iranian activity in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Macron, who visited Washington last week, said Trump responded “positively” to his recent suggestion for a new agreement while he had also “exchanged about that” in the past few days with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Macron said whatever Trump’s coming decision, a broader deal was needed because “nobody wants a war in the region and nobody wants an escalation in terms of tension in the region.”
With trade talks also a key part of the visit, Macron said France would support formal talks on a free trade deal between Australia and the European Union after it found solutions to concerns it had on agriculture.
The countries also signed agreements to counter cyberwarfare and on committing to strategies addressing climate change, including working to make coral reefs in the Pacific more resilient.
Macron also used a ceremony commemorating Australia’s wartime cooperation with France to highlight a global worldview as a counter to nationalism.
A week after criticizing Trump’s “America first” policies on his trip to Washington, and hours after a May Day gathering of European anti-immigration populist leaders and violent right-wing protests in his home country, Macron said the Australia’s wartime sacrifice in Europe should serve as “a powerful message at a time when nationalism is looming, entrenched behind its borders and its hostility to the rest of the world.”
“No great nation has ever been built by turning its back on the world,” he said.

"Le Connard" Buys Into China’s Rights Vision

Macron Dismisses Dalai Lama Meeting as ‘Crisis’ Provoking
By Sophie Richardson

It was lofty – and tough – rhetoric from French President Emmanuel Macron: in August 2017, he asserted that his country’s diplomatic and economic interests with China “cannot justify cover-up of the question of human rights.” 

Yet by January Macron’s resolve appeared to weaken, as he failed to publicly raise a single specific human rights case or issue on his first visit to China as president.
This week it appeared Macron’s resolve had fully given way to deference. 

In response to a question during his state visit to the US, Macron said that if he were to meet the Nobel Peace laureate the Dalai Lama it would “create… a crisis with China.” 

Macron, who had met the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader while running for office, praised him as “very inspiring,” but suggested that meeting him now would require prior consultation with Beijing, and that a symbolic meeting would likely be “useless and counterproductive.”
Macron could have used the opportunity to highlight pervasive Chinese government restrictions on Tibetan religious communities, including the installation of Communist Party cadres in the management of monasteries and nunneries. 

He could have spoken about the forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads, pervasive restrictions on Tibetans’ access to passports, or even their right to peacefully protest or criticize government policies. 

He could even have devoted a few words of concern about human rights abuses broadly by Chinese authorities. 

Instead, Macron effectively adopted China’s take on diplomatic interaction with the Dalai Lama.
Macron isn’t the first leader to criticize human rights in China while at home, only to back down once on foreign soil. 

But when the Chinese government is increasingly infringing on rights beyond its borders – threatening dissidents abroad, pressing countries to forcibly return refugees to China, or undermining international human rights institutions – Macron’s answer is more than just discouraging. 

It’s also dangerously short-sighted for France and other countries that have long promoted human rights abroad.

France Should Spotlight China's Rights Crisis

Foreign Minister Le Drian Should Call for Releases, Announce Policy Review
Human Rights Watch

French President Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping attend a bilateral meeting in Hamburg, Germany, July 8, 2017. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian should publicly urge respect for human rights in meetings with China’s new leadership, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the foreign minister. 

Le Drian is visiting China for the first time as foreign minister from November 24 to 27, 2017.
“French President Emmanuel Macron has explicitly committed to promoting human rights in China along with diplomatic and economic concerns,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director. “Minister Le Drian’s visit is an important opportunity to publicly challenge the Chinese leadership over its rampant human rights violations.”
Human Rights Watch urged Le Drian to:

• Publicly call for the releases of political prisoners Liu Xia, Gao Zhisheng, Jiang Tianyong, and Wang Quanzhang;
• Express concerns about China’s increasing efforts to undermine international institutions that should help defend human rights, including the United Nations, Interpol, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); and
• Announce a review of all bilateral law enforcement cooperation.

“France has long been a defender of fundamental rights and liberties worldwide,” Jeannerod said. 

“In the face of an unreceptive Chinese leadership, Minister Le Drian’s visit will be a test of France’s commitment.”

Chinese Peril

France's newly elected president wants to curb Chinese takeovers in Europe's strategic industries
Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a ceremony marking the 77th anniversary of late French General Charles de Gaulle's appeal of June 18, 1940, at the Mont Valerien memorial in Suresnes.

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed on Thursday to convince China’s closest allies in Europe that curbing foreign takeovers in strategic industries was in their interest, warning EU governments not to be naive in global trade.
Smaller eastern and southern European economies that are dependent on Chinese investment have rejected any steps against Beijing, even going as far as to block EU statements criticising China’s human rights record.
But Macron, at his first EU summit, said being an attractive destination for investment did not mean exposing Europe to what he termed “the disorder of globalisation”, as he seeks to make good on a campaign pledge with a so-called protective Europe.
“Things are changing because we see the disorder of globalisation and the consequences in your own country. I want to build an alliance around this idea,” Macron told a news conference during the summit of EU leaders. 

“I am for free trade ... but I am not for naivety.”
State-owned ChemChina’s US$43 billion purchase of Swiss pesticides and seeds group Syngenta, Beijing’s biggest overseas sale to date, has deepened concerns in Europe that the bloc is ceding control of its advanced technology, EU diplomats said.
Macron, who defeated the anti-Europe, far-right leader Marine Le Pen last month, said that he had always been a defender of globalisation and free trade during his time as minister but that leaders should hear from workers hit by globalisation.
The issues of globalisation and “social dumping” took centre-stage in France’s campaign after Le Pen used the relocation of a Whirlpool factory in northern France to Poland to paint Macron as a globalist who did not care about workers.
A free-trade advocate, Macron let several national corporate champions be taken over by foreign firms as a minister. 

But since his election he has sought to drum up support in Europe for what he calls a “protection agenda”.
Logo of Syngenta on it's plant in Muenchwilen.

He has found some support from Germany and Italy. 

EU leaders will agree on Friday to allow the European Commission to explore ways to limit foreign takeovers in areas such as energy, banking and technology, where China seeks Europe’s know-how.
In a statement, leaders will ask the Commission “to examine the need and ways to screen investments from third countries in strategic sectors, while fully respecting members states’ competences,” a reference to national sovereignty on the issue.
Berlin, Paris and Rome are upset that the Commission, the bloc’s competition regulator, approved ChemChina’s purchase of Syngenta while China maintains restrictions on EU investment.
Chinese direct investment in the European Union jumped by 77 per cent last year to more than 35 billion euros (US$38 billion), compared with 2015, while EU acquisitions in China fell for the second consecutive year, according to the Rhodium Group.
But free-trade advocates such as Sweden want to avoid any measures that might contradict the bloc’s rejection of the protectionism promoted by US President Donald Trump.