“Zhong guo” or literally “middle country”, more precisely, the right middle country, meaning without excess. Those who analyze China's policies should always start from what “China” means in Chinese.
Emmanuel Macron receives Xi Jinping in France. Macron views the relationship between France and China from the perspective of equality. He envisions China promoting a multipolar world, in which the United States has become a superpower like any other.
It is wrong.
Chinese leaders believe that China should become the center of the world. This is also the place that China occupied for centuries, so much so that it was the center of the Asian world.
Chinese leaders want more than just a China replacing the United States as the leading superpower. They seek a world in which all countries gravitate around China.
This is a little of what was happening in the field of consumer goods production.
- Listen to international politics expert Loic Tassie on the Benoit Dutrezzak show via QUB :
Something clumsy and poorly educated
It is unfortunate for China that its current president, who lacks education, is a product of the Cultural Revolution. Nostalgic for Maoist totalitarianism, Xi rebuilt a form of totalitarianism more Stalinist than that of Mao. He thus made himself hated by a large portion of the Chinese population who, moreover, showed no revolutionary zeal.
In foreign policy, unlike Mao, who could rely on the brilliant talents of Zhou Enlai, Xi Jinping does not have anyone with such qualifications. Thanks to his aggressive policies in the China Sea, in Hong Kong, on the border with India, in Xinjiang, against Taiwan or his support for Russia in its war in Ukraine, Xi has attracted the distrust of many countries.
When Macron receives Xi in France, he has before him a Chinese leader who is clumsy at the international level and even aggressive at times.
- Listen to international politics expert Loic Tassie on the Benoit Dutrezac program via QUB :
Cool calculator
There is no doubt that Xi could be an excellent host, as Vladimir Putin did when Macron received him in 2019 at Brégançon, his summer residence. Xi was invited to the Pyrenees, where one of Macron's grandmothers lives.
However, beautiful words aside, Macron should not expect anything from this cold calculator.
Ultimately, the only thing that matters to Xi Jinping is that France falls within China's political gravitational pull. France and other countries.
Of course, Macron sees France's future differently. He believes in a strong France in a united Europe capable of standing up to China and the United States.
But Macron's Europe does not yet exist. China will not help the French president build it. on the contrary. For example, the war in Ukraine is a boon for China. Why would Xi help end this crisis?
