Opinion | EU’s struggle to find a unified stance on China will shape the US-China contest

This has been a month of heightened diplomatic activity in East Asia with Chinese President Xi Jinping hosting his French and Brazilian counterparts in Beijing while Tokyo convened a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven in preparation for next month’s G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit received considerable attention for the scale of his red-carpet reception and Xi’s attention. Sino-French bonhomie was on display and informal meetings between the two exuded a personal chemistry rarely seen in public. But it was what Macron said after the visit that was the most attention-grabbing.

Expanding on his comment that Europeans must not be “followers” of either the US or China, Macron said during a state visit to the Netherlands later that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal … doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves”.

It’s just that in keeping with France’s distinctive strategic culture going back to the Charles de Gaulle era, Macron (with very likely an eye on his domestic constituency and the street protests) was asserting his country’s penchant to articulate positions on global issues that are at variance with America’s.

The disastrous US-led war against Iraq in 2003 is a case in point, but even then, Paris circled back to the Western camp after conveying its disagreement with Washington.