How significant is French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne's visit to China?

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Douglas Yates, Doctor of Political Science, American Graduate School in Paris.

Transcript

00:00 Let's talk to Douglas Yates, who's a professor at the American Graduate School in Paris.

00:04 Good to see you, Douglas.

00:05 Premier, you talked about the shared spirit of independence and autonomy between China

00:10 and France.

00:11 Where do you see that?

00:14 Well, both of these countries last year, when President Macron visited, emphasised the importance

00:22 of multilateralism.

00:24 What's so interesting is the complement that's being offered here to bilateral relations.

00:32 That is, multilateral forms are a wonderful way of getting omnibus deals signed.

00:38 But often, there's a need for that person-to-person, country-to-country, actor-to-actor diplomacy

00:47 in order to make agreements outside of the boundaries of rules.

00:53 And so I look at this as a positive move, complementary to their overall objective,

00:59 which are multilateral agreements.

01:00 Well, you mentioned Macron's visit, but it's the second visit to China by a French foreign

01:04 minister in less than six months.

01:06 So beyond the diplomatic show marking the 60 years of ties, what do you think France

01:11 is looking to achieve?

01:13 Well, OK, here I actually have an excellent explanation, because the last visit was by

01:19 Catherine Colonna.

01:21 She was the foreign minister, and the prime minister was Elizabeth Borne.

01:25 And now we have two fine young cannibals.

01:28 We have Gabriel Atal as the prime minister, and we have Stéphane Ségurné, the new foreign

01:33 minister.

01:34 And so I think part of this is simply to have the [INAUDIBLE] between the new actors representing

01:42 France and the foreign ministers in China.

01:45 So it's to-- these people need to create their own links, build their own confidence, inform

01:51 themselves.

01:52 And so this second visit is necessary for the new government of Gabriel Atal.

01:58 France has said, we are clearly expecting that China will send very clear messages to

02:02 Russia over the conflict in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.

02:07 How likely is that, and will it change anything?

02:09 Yeah, so here, this is the public diplomacy.

02:13 That is, these are the statements that France needs to make that will be reported that show

02:19 to the domestic constituency back here at home and to the European partners that France

02:26 is doing something for Ukraine.

02:28 But I wouldn't take it too seriously.

02:31 Efforts to change major powers, alliances through diplomacy are slim to nothing.

02:39 Nevertheless, behind the scene, France does seem to have managed to escape some of the

02:45 tit-for-tat punishments in the trade sanctions that have been going on between the European

02:50 Union and China.

02:52 There it was a success.

02:53 But I wouldn't count on this visit having any effect whatsoever on Russia-China relations.

02:59 I did want to ask you about trade, because the EU increasingly views China as a partner,

03:05 but also as an economic competitor and systemic rival.

03:08 So what is that going to mean in terms of trade and concessions that you're expecting?

03:14 A wave of xenophobic nationalism sweeping across Europe causes the actors, the member

03:24 states of the EU to adopt positions of protectionism.

03:31 The claims, the original investigation of the EU, just to be fair, was that China had

03:36 subsidized its electrical vehicles.

03:39 But then targeting China with sanctions, informal tariffs, forcing them to register their cars,

03:47 and now passing a law requiring a certain amount of strategic mineral content to be

03:54 domestically produced, either through extraction or recycling, led China very reasonably to

04:00 make a gentle tit-for-tat and create tariffs on European brandy.

04:07 The problem was 98% of that came from France.

04:11 Thus the need for this shuttle diplomacy, send your foreign minister over and explain,

04:15 hey, you wanted to do a tit-for-tat against Europe, but this hit France almost exclusively.

04:21 And this is the 60th anniversary of our bilateral relations.

04:25 Remember Charles de Gaulle.

04:27 Maybe you could lighten up on us.

04:30 Douglas Yates in Paris, thank you very much.

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