France, China share role in global destiny

As the world order shifts on its axis, these two great nations can play a part in mapping out a better future for everyone

The president of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has appeared as a new force with a distinct view of France and the European Union.

His energy, as well as his ambition, will contribute to the dynamics of the Franco-Chinese relationship and, while the old global order has not yet completely given way to the new, they must also be at the source of impulses that accompany and anticipate change.

With this perspective, Macron's visit to China from Jan 8 to 10 revealed not only his views on France, the European Union and his country's partner on the other side of the Atlantic, but also his global approach, since taking a stand on the Chinese renaissance also reveals a vision for the world.

As well as continuing projects initiated in previous decades in the fields of commercial relations, investment, education, science, the arts, culture and tourism, the current international situation calls for the two ancient nations, France and China, to act in several new directions. Keeping in mind the long term and the need for strategic anticipation, we must think about the principles for the architecture of the world to come.

The link between qualitative growth, the post-carbon economy and the Belt and Road Initiative is one of the points where Paris and Beijing can demonstrate that need for a worldwide "ecological civilization", to use the notion put forward by the China's President Xi Jinping.

The two capitals must co-invest substantially in the framework of the Belt and Road, in cooperation projects on the African continent and, wherever possible, they must act for the realization of sustainable new Silk Roads.

The French government is engaged in a long struggle against terrorism, largely fueled by religious fanaticism. It is in the interests of Paris and Beijing to agree on how China can support France's efforts to isolate terrorist extremism in parts of Africa. With a clear political will, development projects, starting with the fundamental field of education, could quickly emerge between the G5 Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad), France and China.

China is deeply affected by the very serious tensions related to the Korean Peninsula. A power for peace, France can, in conjunction with its partners, take the initiative to hold in Paris negotiations without conditions between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, negotiations whose possibility was mentioned not long ago by Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, and Cho Myoung-gyon, Seoul' s minister of unification.

Such action cannot be undertaken without perfect coordination between Paris, Beijing and Washington, and an exceptional trust between the French and Chinese presidents. In relations between nations, nothing truly great has ever been accomplished without a singular chemistry between statesmen who combine courage with a long-term vision of the equilibrium of the world.

Just as splitting the atom changed the 20th century, it is with artificial intelligence that a truly new world - whose economic, social and geopolitical consequences remain unclear - is advancing. By combining their power of influence, France and China must work as permanent members of the Security Council to create an agency of the United Nations that will ensure that AI remains at the service of human dignity and peace. It is morally imperative to find a balance between humanism and the religion of data, what some call "data-ism".

Macron became the president of France by being elected by a majority that does not dissociate the interests of France from a strong and effective European Union. Xi has been able to establish his country's legitimacy since 2012 through its ability to put Chinese civilization on the path to renaissance. The two men must never lose sight of what their civilizations command and of the strategic importance of the Sino-European relationship.

On the one hand, the French president can be the messenger, within the Western world, of the idea that the Chinese renaissance is an opportunity for Europe and a decisive factor in the equation for solving some of the major problems of our time. This is at a moment when China, whose power approaches that of the United States, has become more confident and extroverted, arousing fears around her.

Such a positioning would be in line with the vision of General de Gaulle, who, 54 years ago, wanted the recognition of a civilization whose role for peace and the prosperity of the world is central.

On the other hand, Xi must do everything to facilitate the unification of the European continent. While neither Donald Trump's US nor Vladimir Putin's Russia supports the European Union and prefers nationalist forces that weaken it from within, China must reaffirm by coherent action its support for the unification of a continent with which it has, fundamentally, so many affinities. In this perspective, Xi could dispel the misunderstandings surrounding the "16 + 1" cooperation mechanism with Eastern European countries as quickly as possible.

Under the joint leadership of Paris and Beijing, a mechanism that brought together the European Union, the African Union and China would illustrate a desire to better coordinate actions in relation to the African continent but also to take into account indispensable realities of the 21st century.

Because they are separated by 24 years and very different personal paths, a strong chemistry between Macron and Xi is not obvious, yet the two leaders converge on two essential points.

First, in their political philosophies they create support within their countries by their ability to reconcile what, on the surface, seems to be opposed. Macron is not "neither right nor left". He is, in a sense, both right and left - neither purely Rothschild & Cie's investment banker nor exclusively the assistant of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. He envelops in his actions these two dimensions that seem to be opposed. Xi, meanwhile, can seduce Davos while renewing the Chinese Communist Party. He encourages innovation, entrepreneurship and the construction of new Silk Roads while placing himself in the continuity of the founders of the People's Republic of China.

It is right to point out the phrase "at the same time" that recurs in the words of Macron. This cannot be foreign to the Chinese spirit since it is the matrix of a thought that values inclusive oppositions. We must also hope that the two men, away from the media spotlight, can take time to discuss their political philosophies and their visions for the world.

When France and China reflect together upon a changing world and try to make sense of it, the Franco-Chinese relationship is no longer the sum of what ministers, diplomats or businessmen accomplish with varying degrees of success. It puts itself at the service of a cause that transcends it but also gives it its true value.

In international politics, Macron and Xi converge in the idea of defending multilateralism. Moreover, they would fundamentally agree that "what remains in the end is what unites mankind", as the French president said during his speech at the Sorbonne.

In the past, France and China have been truly great nations because they have put themselves at the service of an ideal of universalism bigger than their own immediate interests. Faithful to their history, animated by a spirit of conciliation, aware that the fight for human dignity is always to be renewed, they can choose to enter a long march toward what the Chinese president calls a "community of shared destiny for mankind".

This long march, chosen by two independent nations, is the rejection of a static opposition between a globalism that reduces everything to the same and the nationalist reaction to it. It is not the abstract negation of identities and sovereignties, and even less their exaltation. It is a transformation in a fruitful tension between the reality that weighs and the ideal that elevates.

It is a progress that opens a path worthy of man.

David Gosset is the founder of the Europe-China Forum. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

( China Daily Africa Weekly 01/12/2018 page12)