Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in China for a two-day state visit, as the two countries look to further deepen a relationship that has grown closer since Moscow invaded Ukraine more than two years ago.
The visit comes days after Russia launched a new offensive in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, and as it claims advances on the 1,000km (600-mile) long front line where Kyiv’s forces have been hampered by delayed deliveries of weapons and ammunitions from the United States.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a “no limits” partnership between Russia and China days before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine in February 2022. In March 2023, when Xi visited Moscow, he described a “new era” in the countries’ relationship while in October, when Putin was last in Beijing, Xi spoke of the “deep friendship” between the two leaders who had met 42 times over the previous decade.
China’s state news agency Xinhua confirmed Putin’s arrival for what Chinese media have described as a state visit from an “old friend”.
Ahead of the trip, 71-year-old Putin said his choice of China as his first foreign destination since being sworn in as president for a fifth term underlined the “unprecedentedly high level of the strategic partnership” between the two countries as well as his close friendship with Xi, who is 70.
“We will try to establish closer cooperation in the field of industry and high technology, space and peaceful nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, renewable energy sources and other innovative sectors,” Putin told China’s Xinhua state news agency.
The two leaders will take part in a gala evening celebrating 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the People’s Republic of China, which was declared by Mao Zedong following the communists’ victory in China’s civil war in 1949.
Putin will also visit Harbin in northeastern China, a city with strong ties to Russia.
In his interview with Xinhua, Putin also appeared to give his backing to a 12-point Ukraine peace plan that Beijing released to a lukewarm reception on the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2023.
He said the proposals could provide the basis for discussions and that Moscow was “open to a dialogue on Ukraine”. He reiterated the long-held Russian position that “negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including ours.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said any negotiations must include a restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression, and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Switzerland is convening a peace summit for Ukraine, focusing on Kyiv’s framework, next June. At least 50 delegations have already agreed to attend, but Russia has not been invited.
China claims to be neutral in the conflict but has not condemned Moscow for its invasion of a sovereign country.
Russia ‘useful’ for China
The Kremlin said in a statement that during their talks this week, Putin and Xi Jinping would “have a detailed discussion on the entire range of issues related to the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” and set “new directions for further development of cooperation between Russia and China.”
The two countries have made clear they want to remake the international order in line with their own visions of how the world should be.
Speaking on Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Moscow and Beijing played a “major balancing role in global affairs”, and that Putin’s visit would “strengthen our joint work”.
Both countries are veto-holding members of the United Nations Security Council, alongside the US, United Kingdom and France.
“We should not underestimate Russia’s ‘usefulness’ as a friend without limits to China and Xi Jinping,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, told Al Jazeera in an email. “Russia is a valuable partner in displacing the US and changing the global order to a favourable one for China and Russia alike. Russia also sees Taiwan as an integral part of China, and we have already seen speculation about the war scenario in the Indo-Pacific and whether Russia would step up to help and join China in possible war efforts.”
Moscow has forged increasingly close ties with Beijing, diverting most of its energy exports to China and importing high-tech components for its military industries from Chinese companies amid Western sanctions.
The two countries have also deepened military ties, holding joint war games over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, and organising training for ground forces in each other’s territory.
China has stepped up military activity around self-ruled Taiwan as the island prepares for the May 20 inauguration of William Lai Ching-te, who was elected president in elections in January.
China claims the territory as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal.
Isolated Putin is to meet Xi to rally support for war, but cautious China is wary of punitive measures from the West.
President Vladimir Putin has signalled approval of China’s plan as a “genuine desire” to end the war in Ukraine as he travels to Beijing to shore up support from his vital international partner.
In an interview with China’s Xinhua state news agency published on Wednesday ahead of a two-day visit to the country to meet President Xi Jinping, Putin praised Beijing’s approach, saying that it truly understood the conflict’s “root causes” and its “global geopolitical meaning”.
China’s 12-point paper for ending the war received a lukewarm reception when it was made public last year. However, Putin hailed additional measures made public last month as “realistic and constructive steps” that “develop the idea of the necessity to overcome the Cold War mentality”.
Xi’s additional principles, set down in talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, call for a “cooling down” of the situation, conditions for restoring peace and creating stability and minimising the effects on the world economy.
Putin is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Thursday, his first trip abroad since his March re-election and his second in just over six months to China. He will also travel to the northeastern city of Harbin for a trade and investment exposition.
China wary
Russia and China proclaimed a “no limits” relationship just days before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but Beijing has so far avoided providing actual weapons and ammunition for Russia’s war effort.
With the West having imposed unprecedented sanctions over its military offensive, Russia has looked to China as a crucial economic lifeline.
The two countries have since boosted trade to record highs. China has benefitted from cheap Russian energy imports and access to vast natural resources, including steady gas shipments via the Power of Siberia pipeline.
But China, already engaged in a trade war with the United States, is wary of its economic partnership and military cooperation with Russia coming under further scrutiny from the West.
On Tuesday, the US slapped major new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminium and medical equipment. China immediately promised retaliation, promising to take measures to defend its interests.
China has already been targeted by punitive measures over the war. This month, the US announced sanctions against more than 280 entities in their latest effort to paralyse Russia’s military and industrial capabilities, including 20 firms based in China and Hong Kong.
Peace summit
Russia views the conflict in Ukraine as a struggle pitting it against a “collective West” that took no account of its security concerns by promoting the eastward expansion of NATO and military activity close to its borders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace plan calls for a withdrawal of Russian troops, the restoration of its 1991 post-Soviet borders and bringing Russia to account for its actions.
He has expended great efforts to persuade China to attend a “peace summit” scheduled for June in Switzerland.
But Russia, which is not invited, dismisses the initiative as meaningless and says talks must take account of “new realities”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is visiting Ukraine, has said that Russia should and must pay to rebuild what it has destroyed in the country, adding that the US intends to use its power to seize Russian assets.
Zelenskyy asked Blinken for Patriot missile defence systems for the city of Kharkiv near the Russian border amid continuing gains by Russian forces in the region.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has concluded a five-day tour of Europe, after visiting France, Serbia and Hungary, where he touted Beijing’s vision of a multipolar world and held talks on trade, investments and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron feted Xi with gifts of luxury bottles of cognac and a trip to a childhood haunt in the Pyrenees mountains, while in Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic organised a grand welcome, gathering a crowd of tens of thousands of people, who chanted “China, China” and waved Chinese flags in front of the Serbian presidential palace.
In Hungary, President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban also rolled out the red carpet for Xi, receiving him with military honours at the Hungarian presidential palace.
The tour marked Xi’s first trip to Europe in five years and came at a symbolic time for the three nations.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France, and the 75th of those with Hungary. The trip also coincided with the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during Serbia’s war on Kosovo.
Xi’s main aim with the visit, analysts say, was pushing for a world where the United States is less dominant, and controlling damage to China’s ties with the European Union as trade tensions grow amid a threat of European tariffs and a probe into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles that European officials say are hurting local industries.
People waving Chinese and Serbian flags gathered outside the Palace of Serbia during a welcome ceremony for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Belgrade [Dimitrije Goll/ Serbia’s Presidential press service via AFP]
Here are the main takeaways.
No concessions on trade, Russia-Ukraine
Throughout Xi’s two-day trip to France, Macron pressed the Chinese leader to address Beijing’s trade imbalances with the EU – which stood at a deficit of 292 billion euros ($314.72bn) last year – and to use his influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
Macron invited European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to join his talks with Xi, to underline European unity on calls for greater access to the Chinese market and to address the bloc’s complaints regarding its excess capacity in electric vehicles and green technology. The pair also pushed Xi to control the sales of products and technologies to Russia that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
But the Chinese leader appeared to have offered few concessions.
Xi denied there was a Chinese “overcapacity problem” and only reiterated his calls for negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Xi, who is expected to host Putin in China later this month, said he called on all parties to restart contact and dialogue.
“Both trade and Russia are non-negotiable for China. Macron could not achieve anything [on those fronts],” said Shirley Yu, political economist and senior fellow at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom.
But she suggested the visit furthered Macron’s personal relationship with Xi, one that is part of the French leader’s strategy to make France a crucial partner to all emerging world powers.
“Macron shares one vision in common with Xi, which is that the US hegemony – including the quest for Europe’s allegiance to the US’s foreign policy – must yield to a multipolar global order by accommodating the rising powers’ interests and concerns,” Yu told Al Jazeera. Macron’s recent visits to India and Brazil also “prove that France wants to stay at the forefront of that global shift,” she added.
And despite the lack of concessions, French officials told the Reuters news agency that the visit allowed Macron to pass on messages on Ukraine and would allow for more open discussions in the future.
As for Xi, Macron’s talk of European “strategic autonomy” helps further the Chinese leader’s vision for a multipolar world. And while there was no reconciliation on the economic front, Xi’s visit would help with “damage limitation” wrote Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the Chatham House, a United Kingdom-based think tank. It could help prevent ties with Europe from worsening even more, as they have with the US, she said, amid the threat of European tariffs on Chinese goods and a probe into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, address the press after their official talks in the Carmelite Monastery, the prime minister’s office, at Buda Castle district in Budapest, Hungary on May 9, 2024 [Pool via AFP]
In contrast to Xi’s stop in France, his visits to EU candidate country Serbia and EU member state Hungary were marked by pledges to deepen political ties and expand investments in eastern and central Europe.
In Belgrade, Vucic, the Serbian president, signed up to Xi’s vision of a “global community of shared future” and the two leaders hailed an “ironclad partnership” while also announcing that a free trade deal signed between their two countries last year would come into effect on July 1.
Other economic promises included the purchases of new Chinese trains, new air links and increased Serbian imports.
Yu, the political economist at LSE, said Xi’s visit to Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in the city, was meant to make “clear that China and Russia share a common objection to NATO’s east expansion”. It also “reveals that there should be no illusion that China will bow down to Western pressure to curtail economic partnership with Russia,” she said.
In Budapest, Xi pledged more investments in transport and energy, including the construction of a high-speed railway connecting the capital city centre to its airport and cooperation in the nuclear sector, according to Hungarian officials. Xi also promised to move forward on a $2.1bn project to connect the Hungarian capital with the Serbian capital.
The project, most of which is financed by a loan from China, is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the ambitious infrastructure plan launched by Xi a decade ago to connect Asia with Africa and Europe.
All this demonstrates Xi’s keenness “to reintroduce the Cold War ‘Second World’ as a significant geostrategic player,” said Yu. “With China’s economic support, the periphery of the EU can become more significant European economic players, boasting higher speed of growth and delivering high-tech supply chains,” she said.
To China, Hungary serves as a gateway to the EU trade bloc and Yu added that Beijing’s growing partnership with Hungary could also “potentially deem the EU’s sanctions on Chinese EVs ineffective”.
Shanghai, China– “The Chinese take great pride in their food,” read a memo prepared for United States President Richard Nixon ahead of his groundbreaking visit to the People’s Republic of China in 1972. Nixon’s lavish state banquet with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing, broadcast live across the world, was crucial in improving US public opinion of a country that had been hidden from view for decades.
More than half a century later, food is once again playing a central role in nurturing warmer US-China relations. With Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen both recently wrapping up their second visits to China in less than a year, meals have emerged as a key ingredient in stabilising ties between the two countries, as officials on both sides look to tap into the potential of what has been called “food diplomacy”.
Yellen’s visit in early April was notable for the level of Chinese public attention on her food choices. Anticipation was high after her first visit last July, when her choice of a Beijing restaurant serving authentic food from the country’s southern Yunnan province, including mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects if cooked improperly, made her a social media darling in China.
This time around, it was not only her choice of authentic Cantonese and Sichuan food that grabbed headlines but also her use of chopsticks at a popular Guangzhou restaurant established in 1880, reminiscent of Nixon’s own chopstick skills that also impressed his hosts in 1972.
Although Yellen is known to sample local food during her trips around the US, the symbolic significance of doing so in China was especially pronounced, according to Thomas DuBois, a historian of China who teaches at Beijing Normal University.
“In China, food is the language of diplomacy, and the Chinese are rightfully proud of their culinary culture. She [Yellen] knew that how she ate would reflect extremely heavily on her visit,” DuBois told Al Jazeera.
“If you’re eating badly in China, because it’s a very food-obsessed culture, it’s more than a sign of bad taste, it’s a sign that there’s something off about you.”
US President Richard Nixon’s 1972 banquet in Beijing was broadcast live on television [Bill Achatz/AP Photo]
DuBois noted that one of the common phrases used to describe Yellen’s eating in China was “qianxu”, or humility – a character trait “extremely important” to the Chinese.
“Eating well and knowing how to eat is a profound moral philosophy in China that really comes down to being humble enough to change yourself according to what needs to happen, such as coming here and using chopsticks,” he said.
Food’s importance to diplomacy is well-known among foreign diplomats in China. According to a diplomat for a major European country in Beijing, eating together is one of the top priorities when interacting with Chinese officials.
“In high-level bilateral meetings, it’s incredibly important to have an eating element in the programme because that’s where you can have an open and frank conversation,” he said, preferring not to be named. “The dinners are used strategically on both sides to create a trusted relationship,” he said.
Before the diplomat was posted to Beijing, part of his training related to Chinese banquet customs, including who sits where at the table and the rules surrounding toasting. Ministers from his country are also briefed on these customs before they have meetings with their Chinese counterparts, he added.
Even so, banquets can be tricky affairs. In addition to complicated customs, the complex nature of Chinese cuisine, which uses a wide range of ingredients, can lead to challenges in establishing rapport over food, especially with food allergies, which are relatively uncommon in China.
At a recent banquet in Beijing arranged by the Chinese, each visiting European minister had a different allergy, from lactose intolerance to shellfish.
“A Chinese staffer came over and told me that they had such difficulty planning this dinner for us because our ministers have so many different allergies,” the diplomat said. “These differences in eating habits can complexify things and create lots of stress and anxiety.”
Warm coverage
The viral seven-second video of Yellen’s chopstick skills was first posted by a social media account believed to be run directly by Beijing. Multiple state-run outlets published the full details of Yellen’s food itinerary, including all the dishes she ate.
In an essay on the popular Chinese app WeChat, veteran commentator and former journalist Zhang Feng noted that Chinese state media coverage of Yellen’s more endearing side was a departure from the “cold” reporting on US officials in recent years.
“Yellen’s trip to China may somewhat improve the anti-American sentiment of ordinary Chinese people,” Zhang wrote. Chinese public opinion of the US sharply deteriorated during the Donald Trump presidency, who famously ate “Americanised” Chinese food during his state visit in 2017, rebounding slightly since President Joe Biden took office.
The warmer coverage is consistent with the Chinese state media’s shift in tone on US-China relations in recent months as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks to stabilise bilateral relations amid domestic economic challenges.
The practice has historical roots. Chinese officials also used food to improve perceptions of the US in the run-up to Nixon’s visit in 1972. Photos of Americans friendly to the regime, such as journalist Edgar Snow, attending various state banquets were widely circulated in both national and internal party newspapers.
The Nanxiang Steamed Bun restaurant said it had seen no spike in business as a result of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken eating there [Vincent Chow/Al Jazeera]
However, there has also been nationalist pushback against the recent softening of rhetoric.
The outspoken tabloid Global Times said in an editorial that “[t]he Chinese people welcome anyone from anywhere to come and enjoy our food, but that does not mean we won’t push back against groundless accusations and outright crackdowns”.
Another vocal critic, former Xinhua News Agency journalist Ming Jinwei, accused compatriots of being “hopelessly enamoured” with the US in a WeChat essay and referred to them as “spiritual Americans”. He claimed that the reputation of the US is now “bankrupt” in China, which he described as “a good thing”.
The debate over how the CCP should shape domestic opinion towards the US was on display in the much frostier reception Blinken received during his visit in late April, which included meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
While Blinken also ate in authentic restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing, with the US embassy even sharing a clip of him with a popular Chinese food vlogger showing off his chopstick skills, his eating habits received far less attention than Yellen’s.
The social media account that had enthused about Yellen’s ability to use chopsticks did not share any videos of Blinken’s culinary adventures. Instead, it emphasised Chinese talking points about the US’s “wrong words and deeds” on various red-line issues at the centre of US-China tensions, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Ukraine.
On Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, one of the most discussed topics during Blinken’s three-day visit was an interview with the BBC in Beijing in which he was subject to tough questioning over US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The related hashtag for the interview broke into the site’s top 10 most discussed topics on April 28, amassing more than 67 million views as of Tuesday. In contrast, multiple hashtags about Yellen’s eating habits had amassed a total of 39 million views.
It is unclear whether the BBC interview went viral organically. Weibo has been accused of rigging its hashtag ranking system before, with hashtags relating to international politics prone to manipulation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoys a glass of wine on his visit to France this week [Aurelien Morissard/AP Photo]
On Saturday evening, the Shanghai restaurant that Blinken visited was about 80 percent full. A staff member said the restaurant’s location in a tourist hotspot meant that they were always busy and that Blinken’s visit had not led to a spike in customers.
Nonetheless, other countries have also recognised the power of food diplomacy.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron thanked the visiting Xi after an hours-long meeting in Paris for his “openness“ to not imposing preemptive tariffs on French cognac. Beijing had launched an anti-dumping investigation into European brandy in January, viewed by some as a response to a European Union probe on Chinese electric vehicles.
Macron later took Xi and his wife to the Pyrenees, where they nibbled on cheese and enjoyed some wine.
And what did Macron’s going-away gift for Xi include? Two bottles of cognac, of course.
Apple’s iPhone shipments in China increased by 12 percent in March after the company and its retailers reduced prices, according to data from a research firm affiliated the Chinese government.
Shipments of foreign-branded phones in China increased by 12 percent in March to 3.75 million units from 3.35 million a year earlier, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) published on Wednesday showed.
Although the data did not explicitly mention Apple, the company is the dominant foreign phone maker in China’s smartphone-dominated market. This suggests that the increase in foreign-branded phone shipments can be attributed to Apple’s performance.
Apple’s sales surge in March followed a ramped-up discounting effort led by the company and third-party sellers in the run-up to the month, with some iPhone 15 models offered at discounts of as much as 10 percent.
The price cuts appear to have stimulated demand and contributed to the company’s growth in the Chinese market. This represents a significant turnaround from the first two months of 2024, when Apple experienced a 37 percent slump in sales, according to Reuters calculations based on the CAICT data.
During the first quarter of this year, Apple’s smartphone shipments in China tumbled 19 percent, marking their worst performance since 2020, according to research firm Counterpoint. The primary reason for Apple’s sales slump was the launch and successful sales of a high-end smartphone by Huawei in August of the previous year.
Apple’s recorded sales of $16.37 billion (roughly Rs. 1,36,693 crore) for the fiscal second quarter that ended March 30 in the Greater China region, down 8.1 percent but above analyst expectations of $15.59 billion (roughly Rs. 1,30,180 crore), data from Visible Alpha showed.
Apple launched the iPad Pro (2022) and the iPad (2022) alongside the new Apple TV this week. We discuss the company’s latest products, along with our review of the iPhone 14 Pro on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ruling also means the song can no longer be disseminated or reproduced on internet-based platforms.
An appeals court in Hong Kong has banned a popular song that was penned during the Chinese territory’s pro-democracy protests of 2019.
The ban on Glory to Hong Kong, issued on Wednesday, came as the territory’s authorities sought to remove the song from internet search results and content-sharing platforms.
The popular song incorporates defiant lyrics, including the key protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”. It was later mistakenly played as Hong Kong’s anthem at international sporting events, instead of China’s “March of the Volunteers”, in mix-ups that upset city officials.
Judge Jeremy Poon, ruling in favour of Hong Kong’s government, wrote on Wednesday that the song’s composer “intended it to be a ‘weapon’ and so it had become”. The song has been used as “an impetus to propel the violent protests plaguing Hong Kong since 2019,” he said, pointing to its power in “arousing emotions among certain fractions of the society”.
He said an injunction was necessary to stop a range of acts, including broadcasting and performing the song “with criminal intent”, as well as to persuade internet platform operators to remove “the problematic videos in connection with the song” from their platforms.
The ban would target anyone who broadcast or distributed the song to advocate for the separation of Hong Kong from China. It would also prohibit any actions using the song to misrepresent it as the national anthem with the intent to insult the anthem. But it would exempt lawful journalistic and academic activities.
Critics have said prohibiting the broadcast or distribution of the song further reduces freedom of expression since China cracked down on Hong Kong protests in 2019.
They have also warned the ban might disrupt the operation of tech giants and hurt the city’s appeal as a business centre.
As of midafternoon on Wednesday, Glory to Hong Kong, whose artist is credited as “Thomas and the Hong Kong People”, was still available on Spotify and Apple Music in English and Cantonese. A search on YouTube for the song also displayed multiple videos and renditions.
Google, Spotify and Apple did not immediately comment.
The Hong Kong government went to court last year after Google resisted pressure to display China’s national anthem as the top result in searches for the city’s anthem instead of the protest song. But a lower court rejected the government’s initial bid last July.
In its appeal, the government argued that if the executive authority considered a measure necessary, the court should allow it, unless it considered it would have no effect, according to a legal document on the government’s website.
The government had already asked schools to ban the protest song on campuses.
It previously said it respected freedoms protected by the city’s constitution, “but freedom of speech is not absolute”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his first trip to Europe in five years, which is likely to be dominated by Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as economic strains between Beijing and Brussels.
The first stop will be France, with Xi due to hold talks in Paris on May 6 with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, before travelling south to the Pyrenees.
After that, he will travel to Serbia and Hungary, two countries that have maintained close ties with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Matt Geracim, the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, the Chinese president is travelling to Europe with three goals: “repairing relations in Europe damaged by China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, blunting the EU’s economic security agenda vis-a-vis China, and showcasing Beijing’s strong ties with its stalwart partners Serbia and Hungary.”
Here is all you need to know about Xi’s European tour, which continues until Friday.
The big picture
Beijing and Paris are marking 60 years since diplomatic relations were established, with France the first Western country to formally recognise the People’s Republic of China on January 27, 2024.
But the trip also comes amid a deteriorating global security climate, with the war in Ukraine now into its third year and at least 34,683 Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
France has said those two conflicts, particularly Ukraine where Beijing has professed neutrality but not condemned Moscow for its full-scale invasion, will feature prominently in the talks.
“Exchanges will focus on international crises, first and foremost the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement ahead of the visit last week.
Macron has recently emerged as one of the most hawkish of the EU leaders on the continent’s security, and he will be urging Xi to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. In an interview with the Economist newspaper published last week, the French president argued the war was existential for Europe.
“If Russia wins in Ukraine there will be no security in Europe,” he said. “Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?” What security would there be, he asked, for neighbouring countries: Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and others?
To underline the unity of the European position, von der Leyen will also join Monday’s discussions, which are due to get under way just after 11am (09:00 GMT).
As well as the Ukraine war, Europe is also concerned about Chinese business practices and has initiated an investigation into China’s subsidies for electric vehicle manufacturers, amid concerns such payments are undermining competition and harming European companies.
The more than two-year-long war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda when Macron meets Xi [Ukraine Patrol Police via AP]
Macron told the Economist that he would also convey to Xi why Europe needs to safeguard its own manufacturers and industries.
Ahead of Xi’s departure last week, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Beijing was ready to “work with France and the EU to take this meeting as an opportunity to make the China-EU relations more strategic, stable, constructive and mutually beneficial, promote steady and sustained progress in China-EU relations, and contribute to the prosperity of both China and Europe and a peaceful world.”
Following Monday’s summit, Marcon and his wife, Brigitte, will host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to a state banquet.
On Tuesday, Macron will take the Chinese leader to the Pyrenees mountains, where he made regular trips to see his grandmother as a child. The two couples are also expected to take a cable car up to the summit of the 2,877-metre (9,439 ft) Pic du Midi, a dark sky reserve.
After wrapping his trip in France, Xi will head to Serbia where he will arrive in Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy for talks with President Aleksandar Vucic. Three people were killed when Washington said it accidentally struck the compound during the NATO air campaign against Serb forces occupying Kosovo, in an event that triggered outrage and protests in China.
China has since emerged as the biggest single source of investment in Serbia, which is not a member of the EU, and prior to the trip Lin, the MOFA spokesperson, referred to the two countries’ ties as “ironclad”.
“The bombing remains a significant topic for Chinese officials, who use it to support narratives that question the values of liberal democracies,” Stefan Vladisavljev, programme director at Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society wrote in an online analysis. “For Serbia, the visit presents an opportunity to strengthen its position as China’s main partner in the Western Balkans.”
Xi Jinping will arrive in Belgrade some 25 years since US bombs struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade [Marko Djurica/Reuters]
Xi will then travel on May 8 to Budapest, the final stop on his European tour.
There he will meet Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the most Russia-friendly leader in the EU.
Hungary, whose policies have raised concern among other EU members, has become more closely aligned with Beijing and Moscow and recently signed a security cooperation agreement with China that allows Chinese police officers to work in areas where there are large populations of ethnic Chinese or which are popular with Chinese tourists, according to Zoltan Feher is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
Reports on such Chinese police stations have raised alarm in other parts of Europe, particularly among exiles and dissidents.
Hungary is also part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which it joined in 2015, and the two men are likely to discuss the ongoing construction of the high-speed rail between Budapest and Belgrade.
Ukraine war
Macron has spoken increasingly about the need to develop Europe’s own security architecture rather than rely on NATO and the US.
He has even suggested that France would be willing to send its troops to Ukraine, if Russia broke through the front lines and Kyiv asked for assistance.
China has long maintained it is neutral in the war, but Beijing and Moscow have deepened their ties since the full-scale invasion began, and Putin is expected to visit China this month.
Macron will be hoping to persuade Xi of the need for China to get more closely involved in efforts to secure peace as Switzerland organises a peace conference next month to discuss a 10-point plan put forward by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the end of 2022.
The Swiss say they have already invited more than 160 delegations, but it is not clear whether Beijing, which has also put forward a proposal for peace talks and deployed its own envoy in the region, will attend.
Russia has repeatedly dismissed the process, and insists a precursor for negotiations is that Kyiv give up the 20 percent of its territory that Russia currently occupies.
“We must continue to engage China, which is objectively the international player with the greatest leverage to change Moscow’s mind,” the French newspaper Le Monde quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying.
Human rights
Chinese state media have been reporting breathlessly on Xi’s arrival in Paris; the streets decorated with Chinese and French flags and groups of Chinese nationals welcoming their president.
But campaigners for Tibet and Xinjiang, where the United Nations says China may have committed crimes against humanity in holding some 1 million ethnic Uighur Muslims in re-education camps, were also out on the streets of the capital.
The EU imposed targeted sanctions on certain Chinese officials and companies over Xinjiang in March 2021, prompting anger in Beijing.
Delighted to be at a protest in Paris “welcoming” Xi Jinping’s visit
Amazing to see global solidarity among Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers and many others in pursuit of freedom from the CCP
Human Rights Watch says while the French president did not raise the issue publicly on his visit to China last year, he should do so while Xi is in Paris and call for the release of those arbitrarily detained or imprisoned including Ilham Tohti, an Uighur economist who was awarded the Sakharov Prize, Europe’s most prominent human rights award in 2019.
The human rights organisation said Macron should also raise the issue of Tibet, where some 1 million Tibetan children are being placed in boarding schools and separated from their language and culture, and Hong Kong, once the most free territory in China but now subject to two draconian security laws.
“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” Maya Wang, the acting China director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “France’s silence and inaction on human rights would only embolden the Chinese government’s sense of impunity for its abuses, further fuelling repression at home and abroad.”
On April 30, Macron was pictured at the Elysee Palace with Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, on the sidelines of a ceremony to honour former Senator Andre Gattolin, a longtime supporter Tibet, who was awarded the Legion d’Honneur.
Tibetans demonstrate in Paris on Sunday as Xi Jinping arrived for a state visit to France [Thomas Padilla/AP Photo]
Penpa Tsering presented the French president with a signed photo of his 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama and “urged him not to forget Tibet”, according to a report the Central Tibetan Administration.
“We understand that the agenda between the two presidents will be dense given the many international crises such as in Ukraine and in the Middle East, but this must not be done at the expense of exchanges on human rights, which are in a deplorable state throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, where a latent conflict has been going on for over 60 years and poses a threat to regional and international security,” Vincent Metten, the EU policy director for the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.
In Freedom House’s 2024 report on Freedom in the World, Tibet’s overall score was zero out of 100; the lowest in at least eight years.
Maryse Artiguelong, the vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said: “The conflict in Ukraine highlights the threat posed to international order and security by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Their aggressive foreign policies and repressive domestic policies are inextricably linked: Anyone who does not oppose China’s human rights violations risks one day facing its aggressive foreign policy.”
The Philippines has protested against China’s ‘dangerous manoeuvres’ 20 times this year as tensions escalate over the disputed shoal.
The Philippines has summoned a Chinese diplomat, accusing Beijing of “harassment” and “dangerous manoeuvres” after its use of water cannon against two Philippine vessels during a patrol in the South China Sea.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called in China’s deputy chief of mission Zhou Zhiyong on Thursday, two days after the incident at a disputed shoal that left a Philippine coastguard vessel and another government boat damaged.
It was the 20th protest by the Philippines against the conduct of China’s coastguard and fishing vessels this year, the ministry said. It has made 153 complaints over the past two years.
“The Philippines protested the harassment, ramming, swarming, shadowing and blocking, dangerous manoeuvres, use of water cannons, and other aggressive actions of [the] China Coast Guard and Chinese maritime militia,” the ministry said in a statement.
China blockaded and seized the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012.
The Philippines said the pressure in Tuesday’s water cannon incident was far more powerful than anything previously used, and that it tore or bent metal sections and equipment on the Philippine vessels.
Tensions have escalated over the Scarborough Shoal recently as the Philippines takes a more assertive approach in disputed areas while strengthening alliances with the United States and Japan.
A prime fishing patch used by several countries and close to major shipping lanes, the shoal falls inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone and is claimed by China, though no country has sovereignty over it.
China’s embassy in Manila said on Wednesday the atoll had always been China’s territory and urged the Philippines to cease infringements and provocations and not “challenge China’s resolve to defend our sovereignty”.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims from other countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertions have no legal basis.
Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam also claim the parts of the sea around their coasts.
Former foreign minister wins support of 31 legislators in 50-member house in an election closely watched by China, US and Australia.
Legislators in the Solomon Islands have elected former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as their new prime minister.
Manele, who has pledged to continue the Pacific nation’s China-friendly foreign policy, won 31 votes in a secret ballot on Thursday.
His opponent, longtime opposition leader Matthew Wale, secured 18 votes.
The vote in the 50-member parliament took place amid heightened security in the capital, Honiara, with squadrons of police patrolling the parliamentary grounds to ward off potential unrest.
Manele, speaking outside the parliament, praised the fact there was no repeat of past violence.
“The people have spoken,” he said. “We have shown the world today that we are better than that.”
Manele’s appointment comes after a national election last month failed to deliver a majority to any political party. The two camps had lobbied to win support from independents in the 50-member chamber ahead of Thursday’s vote for the prime minister.
The election is being closely watched by China, the United States and neighbouring Australia because of the potential impact on regional security after outgoing Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022.
Sogavare, who built close ties with Beijing during five years in power, did not seek re-election to the top political office and his party backed Manele. The politician was foreign minister in 2019 when Solomon Islands turned its back on Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with Beijing.
Manele’s OUR party, which has pledged to develop the island nation’s infrastructure, won 15 seats, and gained four seats under a renewed coalition with two micro-parties. It needed support from independents to reach the 26 seats needed for a majority. A total of 49 votes were cast with one legislator absent.
Lowy Institute research fellow Mihai Sora, a former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands, said Manele has “a strong track record of working well with all international partners”, compared to Sogavare who was “a polarising figure”.
Australian National University’s Pacific expert Graeme Smith said Manele was capable and “a big change in style” for the Solomon Islands.
Manele has pledged a “government of national unity” that would focus on improving the economy and “progress on our road to recovery” after the COVID-19 pandemic. He said bills on a value-added tax, establishing a special economic zone and rules around national resources would be at the top of the new government’s agenda.
Wale, the opposition leader who heads a 20-seat coalition of parties called CARE, said on Wednesday that the government had failed to create jobs, and the economy was dominated by logging and mining companies, which shipped resources to China, while health clinics were unable to obtain basic medications such as paracetamol.
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