Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the remarks in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
What does Europe mean by reducing its dependency on the United States? How can these remarks be received by the United States? Will Europe conduct a bilateral policy without being drawn into the conflict between China and the United States regarding Taiwan?
British journalist and political scientist Neil Watson answered all these questions through Ednews.
“Macron believes that Europe should have an independent foreign policy that is not reliant on the US, and that Europe should effectively become a Third Superpower, effectively led by France, which is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU. Macron stated that the EU should be less reliant on the US for defence capabilities and energy and stated that the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar should be reduced”, which is a key objective of Moscow and Beijing. It should be noted that Macron spent more than four hours with Chinese leader Xi, the only other attendees being translators. His tone is known to have been conciliatory and the recent Chinese visit to Moscow was downplayed”, N. Watson noted.
According to him, the Biden administration will be dismayed to see such calls for the EU not to become embroiled in the Taiwan-Chinese standoff:
“Furthermore, Macron’s words are aimed at undermining the main objectives of US foreign policy - to make the EU reliant on them militarily and economically. However, the US also knows that the EU and vast swathes of the world are reliant on them and this will not change any time soon. There is also divergence of opinion across the EU and the areas of Europe that are notably not EU members - particularly the UK, which enjoys a “special relationship” with the US.”
“As I stated, the support for US foreign policy across Europe varies tremendously. However, in a Europe that is struggling economically due to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and where alternative energy sources, away from Russia, are only now being established and where China remains the main source of goods and technologies, I believe European leaders will be unwilling to be involved in any military campaign against China”, political scientist mentioned in the end.
Ulviyya Shahin