Emmanuel Macron's state visit to China: a look at potential collaboration areas

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Pascal Lamy, former European Commissioner for Trade.

Transcript

00:00Pascal Lamy is the former European Commissioner for Trade

00:03and former Director General of the World Trade Organization.

00:07I think there are two main areas of cooperation,

00:14which, by the way, EU, France and China are working together.

00:20The first one is the environment, greening our economies,

00:25clean technologies, fighting against biodiversity loss

00:32in areas which France, Europe and China have in common,

00:38which is basically the ocean.

00:39So that's one.

00:41And there is a lot to be done,

00:42especially given the pushback we now have from Mr. Trump and the US.

00:48And the second one is science.

00:50And whatever problems this world is having,

00:55and I'm old enough to have witnessed better periods

00:59for international cooperation,

01:01the area where there is hope is science.

01:06And on this, I think we are, in a way, complementary,

01:11and more can be done,

01:12including to try and offset the formidable geopolitical tensions,

01:18which we, unfortunately, have to live through for the moment.

01:22What does success look like at the end of this meeting?

01:25Like all these meetings, there is the on-public part,

01:31which is probably the most important one,

01:33and then there is the public signal

01:35that we did not lose our time

01:38in spending a visit like this one,

01:42which will appear,

01:44and I'm sure there will be a series of positive announcements,

01:49because that's what our people are expecting.

01:52We live in democracies,

01:54and our leaders have to take on board

01:56what public perceptions tell them they should take on board.

02:00This, in my view, remains the number one issue.

02:03Realistically, is it possible for France

02:05to have a relation with China

02:07that is separate from the EU?

02:10The French answer is no.

02:13The world of today is totally different.

02:16It's much more based on power,

02:19on might rather than right,

02:22as the British would say.

02:23And this, of course, is a big problem

02:26for countries like France,

02:28or like Germany, or like Italy,

02:30given that the US and China

02:34have both an economic,

02:38a strategic,

02:39a tech leadership,

02:41which we do not have for the moment,

02:43so we need to catch up.

02:46And this sort of visit

02:48is, I think,

02:51at least in Macron's mind,

02:53and Macron is a deeply committed European leader,

02:56a way to identify the steps

02:59that we need to take,

03:01not they need to take,

03:02but we need to take,

03:04to matter more

03:05if Xi Jinping or Trump

03:09has decisions to make.

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