Macron goes to Beijing for Ukraine—and returns to a European row over Taiwan

Emmanuel Macron arrived in China seeking an intervention on the war closest to Europe. He left facing an argument about Europe’s obligations in a possible crisis much farther away. The French president’s state visit on 5–7 April produced commercial agreements and statements with Xi Jinping on peace and nuclear restraint. His subsequent comments about Taiwan drew attention away from those results and towards the unresolved meaning of European strategic autonomy.

Macron met Xi in Beijing on 6 April, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen joining a trilateral discussion. France wanted China to use its influence with Russia. The Commission wanted to make clear that Beijing’s relationship with Moscow would affect its relationship with Europe. China offered diplomatic language about peace without announcing a decision that would compel Russia to end its invasion.

During the visit, Macron also argued that Europe should avoid being drawn automatically into a confrontation over Taiwan driven by others. The remarks, made in an interview with POLITICO and Les Echos, triggered criticism that he was distancing Europe from the United States while relying on American support for Ukraine. By 18 April, the disagreement had reached the European Parliament’s debate on China.

At the end of the month, there was one further concrete diplomatic development: Xi spoke with Volodymyr Zelenskyy by telephone on 26 April. Kyiv said they discussed the war and the conditions for a just peace. That contact was significant, but it was not a ceasefire agreement, and the public record does not establish that Macron’s visit alone caused it.

The request to Xi had a clear target and an uncertain mechanism

Macron’s argument in Beijing was that China could influence Russian behaviour in a way other governments could not. Xi had maintained a close relationship with Vladimir Putin and had visited Moscow in March. France sought to turn that access into pressure for a settlement compatible with Ukraine’s sovereignty rather than leave it as political support for Russia.

The challenge was identifying what China would actually do. A statement supporting peace can coexist with a reluctance to criticise Moscow or specify withdrawal terms. Beijing’s willingness to receive European leaders therefore did not demonstrate agreement with the European account of how the war should end. The important question was the conduct China was prepared to encourage or discourage.

France and China’s joint declaration reaffirmed opposition to nuclear war and referred to the responsibilities of nuclear powers. That language matters in a conflict marked by Russian nuclear signalling. It does not amount to a Chinese commitment to enforce every European demand on Russia. Governments can agree on avoiding nuclear escalation while disagreeing about occupied territory and the terms of negotiations.

Von der Leyen’s presence brought the wider EU position into the visit. She stressed a just peace and the relevance of China’s choices on Ukraine to its relations with Europe. Her role was different from Macron’s bilateral state visit: the Commission represents common trade interests and has instruments that can affect the economic relationship with China across the Union.

That division of roles can be useful if the messages reinforce each other. A national leader can conduct diplomacy and develop a relationship with Xi while the Commission sets out the wider consequences for Europe. It becomes less useful if Beijing concludes that commercial opportunities can be negotiated separately with individual capitals while common political conditions remain negotiable.

The visit did not produce a public Chinese undertaking to force Russian withdrawal. That is the appropriate limit to place on descriptions of a peace breakthrough. Contact continued, and the leaders discussed principles, but the distance between a diplomatic statement and a change in Russian behaviour remained substantial.

Xi’s 26 April call with Zelenskyy gave the process another channel. The Ukrainian president’s office said the conversation addressed sovereignty, territorial integrity and possible cooperation towards peace. Zelenskyy later described discussion of deported children, prisoners and food exports. These are concrete issues on which future Chinese action could be evaluated.

The call also underlined a point that can disappear when European capitals compete to mediate: Ukraine has its own relationship with China and its own conditions for negotiations. European diplomacy can support that relationship. It cannot substitute for Kyiv’s consent to terms affecting Ukrainian territory or people. No jointly accepted peace timetable or territorial settlement emerged from the published accounts of the conversation; those questions remain open at the end of April.

By 30 April, the useful tests are consequently practical. Does Beijing use its access to Moscow to support identifiable humanitarian outcomes? Does it engage directly with Kyiv? Does its public position create constraints on Russia’s conduct? Those questions offer a better measure of the visit’s diplomatic value than the warmth of the reception in Beijing or Guangzhou.

An aircraft agreement is easier to announce than a common risk policy

Commercial cooperation supplied some of the visit’s clearest deliverables. On 6 April, Airbus announced an agreement with Chinese partners for a second A320-family final assembly line in Tianjin. It also announced a general terms agreement covering 160 commercial aircraft. These were company announcements made during the state visit, rather than evidence that every associated investment or delivery had already occurred.

The second assembly line is particularly relevant to the political debate because it deepens an industrial relationship with China at the moment European institutions are discussing how to reduce vulnerable dependencies. The apparent contradiction is not resolved by choosing either trade or security as the only objective. Governments and companies need to specify which exposures are acceptable and which would be dangerous in a crisis.

Before travelling, von der Leyen had used a 30 March speech to advocate reducing risks in the relationship rather than breaking economic ties generally. That formulation leaves room for normal trade and cooperation while asking Europe to examine concentrated dependencies, sensitive technologies and economic coercion. It is a programme for making distinctions, not a blanket instruction to withdraw from China.

Macron’s commercial agenda can fit within such an approach, but the fit has to be demonstrated. A business agreement may expand market access, diversify production or increase dependence on a particular jurisdiction. The strategic effect depends on what is being built, what technology is involved and what alternatives remain available. The size of a contract does not answer those questions.

European governments face different exposures. Some industries rely heavily on Chinese demand; others compete with Chinese producers; still others depend on inputs that are difficult to replace quickly. These differences help explain why a common China policy cannot be constructed simply by asking every capital to repeat the same phrase at a press conference.

The Commission has a role because trade policy and the single market provide instruments beyond the reach of an individual national visit. National governments retain their own diplomatic, security and industrial interests. Coordination requires them to share enough information about those interests to avoid undermining measures they have agreed to support collectively.

There is also a lesson from Russia, but it should be applied with care. Dependence on Russian energy showed the danger of assuming that commerce necessarily restrains geopolitical conflict. China’s much broader economic relationship with Europe is different in scale and composition. Invoking the Russian experience is a reason to analyse vulnerabilities, not a substitute for doing the analysis.

The public disagreement after Macron’s trip risked obscuring this more demanding work. It is easier to argue about whether a leader sounds too close to Beijing or Washington than to agree on the cost of alternative suppliers, investment scrutiny or limits on sensitive cooperation. Those decisions are where a European policy would become visible to companies.

Taiwan exposes the missing agreement among Europeans

Macron’s comments about Taiwan were controversial because they could be heard in two ways. One was a familiar French argument that Europe should make its own strategic decisions. The other was a suggestion that a crisis over Taiwan was chiefly someone else’s concern. Critics objected to the second implication, particularly while the United States was central to Europe’s response to Russia.

The EU maintains its own one-China policy and opposes a unilateral change to the status quo through force or coercion. Those positions do not require Europe to make an automatic military commitment in every hypothetical crisis. They do establish that the way a dispute is handled across the Taiwan Strait matters to European security and economic interests.

European interests are tangible. A major conflict would affect trade routes, production networks and relations with both China and the United States. Recognising those exposures does not decide the precise response Europe should make. It does make a claim of general detachment difficult to reconcile with the economic interdependence that European governments defend in their commercial diplomacy.

The question of autonomy therefore has two parts. Europe needs the ability to form a judgment independent of pressure from others. It also needs enough agreement among Europeans to act on that judgment. A statement by the French president cannot establish the second condition merely by using the word Europe.

At the European Parliament debate on 18 April, members called for clarity and unity, and some criticised Macron’s Taiwan remarks. Von der Leyen reiterated the importance of stability and opposition to force. The debate showed that the dispute was not simply France confronting American objections; it concerned the credibility of a common position within the EU itself.

Macron defended his approach during his state visit to the Netherlands on 11–12 April. His wider argument linked sovereignty to industrial capacity, technology and the ability to avoid excessive dependence. That is a substantial agenda, but it does not by itself settle what France and its partners would regard as an acceptable response to coercion in East Asia.

Countries that look to the United States for protection against Russia have a particular reason to scrutinise language that appears to reduce reciprocity in the transatlantic relationship. France, with its own nuclear forces and an established tradition of strategic independence, approaches that debate from a different position. A common European policy must bridge those differences rather than pretend they do not exist.

Beijing has its own reason to welcome European independence when it creates distance from Washington. European policymakers need not reject autonomy because China finds some versions attractive. They do need to distinguish autonomy that expands Europe’s freedom to act from rhetoric that encourages outsiders to treat individual European capitals as alternative negotiating channels.

The disagreement consequently asks a more precise question than whether Europe should be independent. Independent to do what, with which partners and using which capabilities? Until governments can answer those questions together, the phrase can describe different policies that become incompatible when a crisis demands a decision.

The visit leaves three different records

April ends with a commercial record, a diplomatic record and an argument about European strategy. The commercial agreements can be assessed against investments and deliveries. The diplomacy can be assessed against Chinese engagement with Kyiv and any concrete influence on Russian actions. The strategic argument will be assessed through common European decisions rather than national formulations alone.

Keeping the records separate prevents two misleading conclusions. Airbus agreements do not prove that France obtained a change in China’s Ukraine policy. Criticism of Macron’s Taiwan comments does not prove that every part of the visit failed. Different objectives can produce different results during the same journey.

The public evidence supports a narrower account. Macron and von der Leyen raised Ukraine with Xi; France and China issued a joint declaration; companies announced agreements; Macron’s comments generated a dispute over Europe’s position; and Xi later spoke to Zelenskyy. The causal links between those developments should not be stated more confidently than the evidence permits.

For the next stage, European governments need to decide how much of the policy can be conducted through bilateral visits and how much requires common conditions. China can engage both levels simultaneously. Europe’s problem is ensuring that one level does not quietly undo the commitments made at the other.

Macron wanted the trip to demonstrate that Europe could speak to China in its own voice. The argument that followed showed that finding that voice is still an internal European negotiation. Beijing heard a request about Ukraine. European capitals heard a challenge about who is entitled to describe their interests.