Emmanuel Macron’s tendentious trip to China was light on deliverables and heavy on stumbles, casting shadows anew on the French president’s diplomatic mojo.
Macron failed to achieve the trip’s paramount objective: Make headway ending the Russia-Ukraine war on terms Kyiv and the trans-Atlantic alliance can accept. Chinese leader Xi Jinping made no pledge to lean on his “best friend,” Russian President Vladimir Putin, the instigator of a conflict that has caused 354,000 combat casualties, devastated Ukrainian infrastructure and cost the global economy more than $1.6 trillion last year, per the German Institute of Economics’ calculations.
Instead, Xi called for an expeditious resumption of peace talks, reiterating the Chinese view that “all sides” have “reasonable security concerns.”