By John Irish and Ingrid Melander
PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron will probably urge China’s President Xi Jinping, who arrives in Paris on Sunday for a uncommon go to, to scale back commerce imbalances and to make use of his affect with Russia over the battle in Ukraine.
Macron’s hopes are unlikely to be simply fulfilled throughout a time of mounting commerce disputes between Europe and China.
France is backing a European Union probe into Chinese language electrical car exports, and in January, Beijing opened an investigation into principally French-made imports of brandy, a transfer broadly seen as a tit-for-tat retaliation for a rising set of EU probes.
“We wish to receive reciprocity of exchanges and have the weather of our financial safety taken into consideration,” Macron stated in an interview with French newspaper La Tribune on Sunday forward of Xi’s two-day go to, his first journey to the area in 5 years.
Xi was because of arrive at round 4 p.m. (1400 GMT). His official conferences will embrace talks with Macron and European Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen.
The EU’s 27 members – and specifically France and Germany – are divided on their angle in the direction of China.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz won’t be part of Macron and Xi in Paris because of prior commitments, sources stated.
“In Europe, we’re not unanimous on the topic as a result of sure gamers nonetheless see China as primarily a market of alternatives,” Macron stated, with out naming any international locations.
These divisions may undermine the EU’s capacity to affect the Asian big.
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France can even search to make progress on opening the Chinese language market to its agricultural exports and resolve points across the French beauty trade’s considerations about mental property rights, officers stated.
France has been eager to nudge China into pressuring Moscow to halt operations in Ukraine, with little progress aside from Xi’s resolution to name Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the primary time shortly after Macron visited Beijing final yr.
A French diplomatic supply stated: “If the Chinese language search to deepen the connection with European companions, it’s actually necessary that they hear our viewpoint and begin taking it severely.”
On Tuesday, Macron will take Xi to the Pyrenees, a mountainous area pricey to him because the birthplace of his maternal grandmother.
Xi will then head to Russia-friendly Serbia and Hungary.
