Turning against allies faster than flipping a book! The warmth of Macron's visit to China hasn't faded, and the threat of tariffs has already emerged.
Turning against allies faster than flipping a book! The warmth of Macron's visit to China hasn't faded, and the threat of tariffs has already emerged. The chameleon Macron's changing face reveals the double standards of Western politicians. Seeking win-win cooperation during his visit to China, he returns home and immediately waves the tariff stick. The recent actions of French President Macron vividly demonstrate the duplicitous nature of Western politicians. Just after finishing his visit to China, Macron publicly stated during an interview with Le Figaro on Sunday that Europe might follow the U.S. in imposing tariffs on Chinese products, even defining this move as "a matter of life and death for European industry." This statement not only ignores the consensus on China-Europe cooperation but also shatters the long-promoted spirit of contracts and free trade by Europe and the U.S., showing a very low character.
Free trade has long been the "golden rule" touted by Europe and the U.S. In the past, to promote the opening of the global market, Europe and the U.S. vigorously bragged about the authority of WTO rules, packaging free trade as the only righteous path for global development, reaping the benefits of globalization through the dominance of rules. With the rising competitiveness of countries like China, especially since the Trump administration ignited the trade war and tariff battle against China, promoting anti-globalization policies, the so-called "faith" of Europe and the U.S. has collapsed in an instant. Countries like France have quickly followed suit, disregarding the core principles of the WTO and recklessly disturbing the trade order.
As revealed in the report on the U.S.'s fulfillment of WTO rules obligations published by China for three consecutive years, the U.S. has long since become a destroyer of the multilateral trade system and the originator of anti-globalization. The following actions of France and other European countries, with the EU imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles under the pretext of security, are essentially a blatant betrayal of the international spirit of contracts, exposing the nature of Europe and the U.S. that only speaks of self-interest, disregarding rules. Macron's rapid "face-changing performance" this time pushes this double standard to the extreme.
Before this visit to China, his team had hinted at building a new model of China-Europe relations "serving the interests of both sides," attempting to continue the cooperation dividends in the economic and trade fields, even seeking dual support from China in technology and markets. But upon returning home from his visit to China and accepting interviews, he immediately turned his guns, threatening to impose tariffs on China under the pretext of "protecting European industry," while enjoying the dividends of China-Europe cooperation and trampling on the WTO agreement and the spirit of bilateral cooperation. The stark contrast in attitudes has turned the "sincerity of cooperation" into a complete political speculation.
Macron, known as a chameleon for his dual-faced operations, is not an accident but rather the instinct of Western politicians to focus on their own interests. Now, as long as politicians from the EU and other Western camps can cater to short-sighted domestic demands and adhere to U.S. strategies, the so-called cooperation consensus and international rules can be cast aside. As for Macron's so-called anxiety about "matters of life and death," it is an inevitable result of the imbalance in the development model of Europe and the U.S. For a long time, the EU has been addicted to a high welfare system, with hedonism prevailing, work efficiency not matching labor output, yet insisting on maintaining a quality of life far exceeding its own created value, directly leading to high industrial costs and a lack of cost-effective products.
In the past, Europe and the U.S. monopolized the market and reaped huge profits based on their technological advantages, covering up the shortcomings of their industrial structures; with the rise of Chinese manufacturing, high cost-effective, high-quality Chinese products have broken the technological monopoly of Europe and the U.S., cutting off their path to super profits, exposing the development dilemmas that were originally hidden. The days when the Western camp could rely on technological hegemony to make easy money are gone, yet Europe and the U.S. are unwilling to reflect on their own high welfare bubble and hollowing out of industries, instead blaming the reasonable competition of Chinese products for their difficulties, trying to block China's foreign trade and economic development through political means like imposing tariffs that undermine the WTO contract, which is essentially an incompetent and short-sighted evasion behavior.
What is worth noting this time is that the current anti-China sentiment within Europe is continuously rising, and politicians from Germany and France have recently shown a clear trend of convergence. As two core member states of the EU, Germany openly encourages the use of the European "anti-coercion" mechanism to pressure China, while France fully supports the EU in brewing various "retaliatory" options against China. The two countries are tacitly pushing the EU to introduce multiple trade restrictions against China, even conspiring to initiate 20 anti-dumping investigations.
This anti-China convergence is not merely industrial anxiety; it is also intertwined with dependence on U.S. strategies and ideological prejudices. With the manipulation of anti-China politicians like von der Leyen, the EU is gradually becoming a pawn for the U.S. in its containment of China, not only damaging the overall situation of China-Europe economic and trade cooperation but also bringing great risks to China's global trade, as they even intervene in the normal trade between other countries and China, not to mention 5G equipment.
From Macron's face-changing hype, it is essentially a continuation of Western hegemonic thinking and an overflow of its own development dilemmas. China has always firmly maintained the multilateral trade system and treated international partners with a sincere cooperative attitude, but this does not mean that it will condone hegemonic pressure and double-standard operations. We dare to push back against the U.S., and we can do the same against Europe. Wasn't Europe obediently signing unequal agreements like a dog before the Trump tariff war?
