Xi offers no help on Ukraine after meeting with Macron and von der Leyen

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 offered no new updates on China’s position on the Ukraine war, following a closely-watched meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron, who is on a three-day state visit to Beijing along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi to “bring Russia to its senses, and bring everyone back to the negotiating table” amid concerns over Beijing’s deepening relationship with Moscow.

After an hour and a half of ”frank” and “friendly” talks with Macron, Xi called for Ukraine and Russia to resume peace negotiations. Xi also noted that “nuclear weapons must not be used” — though he did not explicitly mention Russia. Russia said earlier last week it planned to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, near its ally’s borders with NATO countries.

Macron was accompanied by a delegation of about 50 business leaders in hopes of inking a series of deals with China, underscoring the deep economic linkages between their two nations.

Europe unlikely to convince China to step up pressure on Russia

The joint visit by EU leaders comes amid growing concerns in the West about Beijing’s embrace of Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine. While China has largely abided by Western sanctions on Russia, it has also provided an economic lifeline to its isolated northern neighbor by lapping up cheap Russian oil and gas, and supplying significant amounts of technology, such as a $74 million increase in chips in 2022 compared to the year prior.

“Whilst von der Leyen hopes that China [will] play a greater role and take a bigger responsibility in this crisis, one should also be aware that China is unlikely to proactively intervene into this conflict or to openly condemn Russia as this would go against China’s own norms and principles in foreign policy,” Xuechen Chen, assistant professor in Politics and International Relations at Northeastern University London, told The China Project today.

China has repeatedly emphasized its neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and has attempted to position itself as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv. But Beijing has refrained from condemning Moscow’s invasion to date: Chinese state media has largely parroted back Kremlin narratives on the conflict, and Xi met with Putin last month in a sign of growing economic and diplomatic ties with Russia.

While China released its own 12-point peace plan to the conflict on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have criticized the plan as being too conciliatory towards Moscow. U.S. and EU leaders have also become increasingly wary over the prospect that China might provide military equipment, directly or indirectly, to Russia — a concern which Beijing says in unwarranted.

The two sides to Europe’s dealings with China

Macron and von der Leyen’s joint state visit marks the latest push from European leaders to engage with China. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have both met with Xi on separate visits to Beijing in recent months.

The EU has emphasized its need to form an “independent foreign policy” and to unify its stance when dealing with China. European countries have been criticized both by Beijing and by their own constituents for blindly following the U.S. in its hardened posture towards China.

“For both France and the EU, we can see that economic cooperation and engagement remains at the top of the agenda…emphasizing that they intend to de-risk rather than de-couple from China,” Chen told The China Project. “This implies that while the EU hopes to strengthen its strategic autonomy and to become less dependent on external actors in terms of critical resources, the EU still acknowledge[s] the importance to work with China on various issues, such as economic and trade, as well as in climate change.”

While Macron was flanked by a 50-strong delegation to woo Chinese business leaders, von der Leyen, who has been called the “bad cop in Brussels,” gave sharp comments in a speech last week that China is becoming “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad,” drawing backlash from Beijing.

Although she pointed out that the EU did not want to “cut economic, societal, political or scientific ties,” she did stress the need to “rebalance” economic ties with China, particularly in strategic industries. This comes as a sharp contrast to French and German leaders, who have sought to maintain their deep economic ties despite rising fears of China and Beijing’s support for Moscow.

Von der Leyen’s participation in Macron’s state visit “gives Macron a credible claim that his visit is on behalf of Europe, not just France, and it’s a constructive way of one-upping German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent solo trip,” German Marshall Fund’s Andrew Small said in an interview with the European Council on Foreign Relations on March 31. “Von der Leyen is able to show to Xi Jinping that he can’t just expect to cut side-deals with Paris and Berlin and circumvent the European Union.”

French deals for planes, trains, and nuclear energy

But Beijing did cut deals with Paris. While Macron was meeting with Xi, the French business delegation was busy inking a slew of deals with Chinese business leaders.

France-based Airbus announced that it will double production capacity in China of its top-selling jet, under a deal signed by CEO Guillaume Faury in Beijing on Thursday, after Chinese authorities approved a previously announced €36 billion ($39.4 billion) deal for 160 plane orders.

French transport group Alstom signed a deal to build a metro in Chengdu, and French container shipping group CMA CGM agreed to work on biofuels with a Chinese group and the Shanghai port. EDF, a French electric utility company which is largely state-owned, also signed a deal to renew its long-standing partnership with Chinese state-owned CGN, both of which are major operators of nuclear plants.