The French government believes that forcing a confrontation with China over Taiwan isn’t in the best interest of the West, saying the island’s current ambiguous status may be the best for all concerned, according to France’s new envoy to Washington.
(Bloomberg) — The French government believes that forcing a confrontation with China over Taiwan isn’t in the best interest of the West, saying the island’s current ambiguous status may be the best for all concerned, according to France’s new envoy to Washington.
“There is no middle ground between the West and China, and it’s better maybe to keep things under control and protect the status quo,” Laurent Bili, a veteran diplomat whose past posts included serving as ambassador to Beijing, said in an interview Thursday on Bloomberg Television. “There are certain issues, we have to think that maybe the status quo is the best that we can achieve.”
As tensions between the US and China have worsened, the flash points have included China’s long-standing claim to Taiwan and the prospect it may eventually move to seize the island democracy by force.
Bili said the US and France are getting closer on their policies toward China, pointing out that the vocabulary the countries use to describe the challenge is now the same.
“We are both speaking about de-risking,” rather than decoupling, he said. “We also assume that China is both a partner sometimes but also a competitor and, even more, a systemic rival. So I think in that way we are very close.”
Bili said that when French President Emmanuel Macron visited China in April he “really called on President Xi Xinping not to change the status quo by force and to refrain” from escalation over Taiwan.
Ukraine ‘Wake-Up’
On Ukraine, Bili said that France won’t waver in its support, calling the invasion by Russia a “wake-up call for NATO.”
Read more: Macron Says Putin Revived ‘Brain-Dead’ NATO With Invasion
“We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” he said. “We don’t want to escalate, but we don’t want also to accept a victory of Russia.”
In a speech on Wednesday, Macron acknowledged his past “harsh words for NATO,” which he called “brain-dead” in 2019. But he said now thinks that Russia’s Vladimir Putin has revived the military alliance “with the worst of electroshocks.”
Bili, 61, also served stints as his nation’s ambassador to Thailand, Turkey and Brazil before his time in Beijing.
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