French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested that Europe should reduce its dependency on the United States, amid reports that some countries have begun “de-dollarizing.”
“[There is] great risk [Europe] gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” he told Politico during a flight from Beijing to Guangzhou in China after meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have backed Macron’s “strategic autonomy” concept, as CCP officials often refer to it when meeting with other European officials.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview, published on April 9. “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.”
China began military drills around Taiwan on April 8 after the island nation’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on April 5. China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan’s government strongly objects to China’s claims.
Europe must better fund its defense industry, develop nuclear and renewable energy, and reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar to limit its reliance on the United States, Macron also said. Macron traveled to China with a 50-strong business delegation, including Airbus and nuclear energy producer EDF, which signed deals during the visit.
But other European officials may not necessarily share Macron’s view. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accompanied the French president during his visit.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” she said she told Xi during the meeting in Beijing last week. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Macron, according to Politico, appeared to disagree.
