French President Emmanuel Macron seems to have had an epiphany of sorts where he has realised, what is in the interest of the US and China may not be in the interest of Europe. While speaking of the “rivalry” between the United States and China, Macron, while returning from Beijing after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, told some journalists that the risk for Europe is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.” He spoke at length on “multilateralism” and said, “The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers.” As reported by Politico, Macron said, “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.” This is similar to what India has been saying about the Ukraine war, for which it is being pilloried by the West—that Ukraine is a localised war, which would have had very little impact on the rest of the world, but for the western resolve to teach Vladimir Putin a lesson. But thanks to western intervention and the push given to prolong the war, things have escalated to a level where the whole world is suffering, with supply chains disrupted and inflation hobbling the globe. As pointed out by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in the context of the Ukraine war, Europe has to “grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” Mr Macron seems to be replacing Ukraine with Taiwan in this case. So what happened to the so-called coalition of democracies, which has the moral duty to stand up to autocrats, even if that means sacrificing their own citizens at the altar of rectitude? As trouble deepens on the ground because of unbridled inflation resulting from loss of food and energy security, righteous anger seems to be taking a back seat to pragmatism in Europe. To Mr Macron the burning streets of Paris and the consequent prospect of losing power—he anyway barely scraped through his reelection last year—are of immediate concern and not the Ukraine war. And this is the situation all across Europe, even though European leaders are keeping up the pretense of going with the US-UK objective of a fight to the finish, where Ukraine finishes itself while trying to oust Putin. Essentially, what we are witnessing is a break in the Nato, with leaders from Germany, France and European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen, sceptical of Uncle Sam’s ability or willingness to resolve the Ukraine crisis. They are making a beeline for Beijing in the hope that Xi will be able to restrain his friend Putin and peace will prevail. In other words, as long as Europe’s own trade and related interests are taken care of, the continent does not have a problem veering towards a world order where Communist China replaces the US as the leader. Amid this, all that talk of multilateralism by Macron is window dressing. Could there be better proof of the slide in the US’ global standing?
But then Macron’s rush to Beijing is a fundamentally flawed move. As expected, Xi was noncommittal about peace in Ukraine. That’s because Xi has no interest in stopping a war which makes Russia even more dependent on China, weakens and divides the West and keeps attention away from his own bid to conquer the world. There is no equivalence between a local war in Europe and the political warfare that Communist China is waging on the world, something that is threatening to become a kinetic conflict at any point in time. Russia is a spent force—a lumbering dinosaur, still feeding off its status as a military juggernaut at the height of the cold war. China is agile, thinks ahead, is devious, with a complete lack of moral compass. It is perhaps the most malign power the world has seen, ever. Putin’s Russia can do damage to Ukraine, but will not dare to fight a war against Nato, as evident from its inaction against countries that are queuing up to join that military alliance. China too will not have a kinetic conflict with Nato, specifically with the US, at least not now, but then it is building up its military capabilities all across the world, getting ready for warfare if the situation demands. However, why go for a kinetic conflict when you can win without firing a bullet? When China can weaken the West, and the rest, from within by exploiting the faultlines of democracies, where is the need for a kinetic conflict? If half of Nato is in Beijing, ready to decouple from the US, while promising not to raise their voice if Xi Jinping decides to capture Taiwan militarily, hasn’t he already won?
In the global power index, Russia is a sideshow, with limited ability to cause actual harm to the international rules-based order. While China is right on top, about to surpass the US. China wants to be the world’s sole superpower and rewrite the rules-based order with Chinese Communist characteristics. There is no saving the world when it happens. That Macron, who leads a country that gave the world the rousing slogan of “liberty, equality, fraternity” refuses to realise this, is sad.