Macron’s Diplomatic Blunder in China Underscores How Unreliable the US has Become to its NATO Allies
An Unassertive America is the Bigger Problem
There’s no question that in his diplomatic visit with Ursula von der Leyen, Emanuel Macron really screwed up in Beijing this week. In seeking to assure Xi he did not agree with the American posturing over Taiwan, nor efforts to decouple the US and Chinese economies—to try and persuade China France did not approve of and desired practically no part in the Sino-American “strategic competition,” Macron seriously endangered the foreign policy of the western alliance in general. I’m actually so embarrassed at what Macron did, it makes me a little ashamed for declaring my solidarity with him on his pension reform a couple weeks ago.
AP Photo/ Ng Han Guan, Pool
By signaling to Xi he wanted to continue economic cooperation— without regard for Xi’s designs on Taiwan, explicitly—Macron just indicated how lukewarm and unreliable is American support for Ukraine —arguing France needed to pursue “autonomy”—and he practically gave Xi NATO’s sanction to think of Taiwan what he likes. While France, he promised, would endeavor to stay aloof of all controversies with the word Taiwan in it, France would prepare to disengage with the US if prudent, for the sake of pursuing presumably European geopolitical interests. This was a major strategic error. And on a wider ideological level, it also plays into Xi and Putin’s imperialist grand strategy to divide the world up into spheres of influence. If Xi wants dominion in the Pacific, and if Putin wants to rebuild the territory of the Soviet Union, then France, Macron signaled, will confine itself to the security of Western Europe. It was a real nice terrible little butchery of democratic ideals Macron made; and sort of a desecration, and an endangerment of our American-European Cold War alliances. Obviously. But something more needs to be said. There is an even worse explanation for Macron’s folly. The US for the first time since before World War II, has shown itself to be an unreliable guarantor of the international order.
I don’t think Macron would have made those comments nor taken that diplomatic turn, if Biden weren’t recklessly promising to defend Taiwan militarily in case of a Chinese invasion; or if the China hawks in both the Democratic and Republican parties weren’t competing with each other for who can talk the toughest on China almost purely for the sake of clout with the populist instincts of the electorate, even going so far as to advocate a Tik Tok ban; or if Ron Desantis weren’t arguing the war in Ukraine wasn’t a primary national interest, reducing it to a “territorial dispute;” and if Trump weren’t agitating to cut US support for Ukraine completely.
Macron, not to mention Vladimir Putin, is inclined to see America’s commitment to Ukraine, and even NATO, as weak and impermanent. He is reacting to America’s unreliability by attempting, he thinks responsibly, to make Europe’s defenses independent, without recourse to America’s uncertainty about how and where to project its power.
We can certainly, and we should, be hard on Macron for his folly in Beijing this week. But the bigger problem is that America doesn’t have its priorities straight.
— Jay
There is actually a bigger problem in my opinion in that Taiwan's current govt despite their opposition to the Mainland Communists actually invests and cares quite little about Taiwan's military/security and "hard power." If I was to compare the Taiwan's DPP party to another political movement, it would probably be the post 1989 anti-nuclear and pacifist German Greens. The difference is by the time the German Greens were actually in a position to influence policy the Cold War had ended, and Poland now served as a buffer between re-unified Germany and Russia. Taiwan on the other hand is essentially practicing post 1989 German domestic politics in a pre-1989 geopolitical environment a quite reckless strategy that seems to be totally contingent on the US doing all of the heavy lifting for it.
**It is largely now forgotten but West Germany prior to 1989 was in fact a substantial military power within NATO and I would argue Taiwan's current lack of military preparedness only plays into the hands of the isolationist nat-cons in the US.
I really haven’t read anywhere that Taiwan doesn’t care about its military security. Of course however much they do care, it’s overshadowed by the support and attention we’re trying to give them. But in any event, I’ve read that Taiwan is preparing to defend itself in case of a Chinese invasion, and the overwhelming majority of the country identify themselves as Taiwanese. These are hopeful signs. Not sure what more is there to expect. I think the main thing unfortunately helping the nat cons is that Biden is abysmally failing to articulate why US has to lead the world. He’s obsessed with “democracy” first like it’s this fragile thing, and second like it’s an end in itself. So the Patrick Deneen-reading idiots think Biden is a doddering old sentimental Wilsonian ideologue which he is, rather than someone who understands simply that Taiwan’s or Ukraine’s interests are the same as ours. Arming democracies is not an act of charity for the US. We simply have to defend an uphold a global order because if we don’t then countries like China will fill the vacuum and take up the mantle. The singular thing helping the stupid natcons is Biden who fails to make this argument. It’s very frustrating