Macron asks Europe, Asia to prepare for a confrontation between the United States and China

Singapore – French president, Emmanuel Macron, asked Europe and Asia on Friday to strengthen the coalition and avoid being caught in the intensification of the crack between the United States and China.

When heading to the Shangri-the Dialogue Annual Defense Forum in Singapore, Macron urged the prime ministers and ministers of Defense of Indo-Pacific in the audience to establish a “new coalition” to counteract the “restrictions and side effects” derived from the growing rivalry between the United States and China.

“France is a friend and an ally of the United States, and she is a friend, and we cooperate, even if sometimes we do not agree and compete, with China,” Macron said, and added that the country does it while adheres to a “demanding approach to our own interests.”

The “division between the two superpowers” is the main risk facing the world, Macron said.

Macron’s speech is produced in the midst of a regional tour that has also taken Vietnam and Indonesia. The European leader has tried to strengthen the cooperation of defense of France with other nations, concerned with becoming collateral damage to the American-China commercial war and in the midst of continuous geopolitical disputes with Beijing.

In Yakarta earlier this week, Macron and his counterpart Pabowo Subianto signed a preliminary defense pact that could see Indonesia buy more French armament, including Rafale combat planes and Scorpene submarines. France and Vietnam also signed agreements in Airbus aircraft, defense and other pacts, for a value of more than $ 10 billion.

“ASEAN and Europe are affected by the unpredictability of the new tariff approach and the end of an order based on rules for trade,” Macron said, warning that this will affect the economy of nations and its ability to finance defense efforts.

Macron’s renewed commitment to the region occurred when bilateral tensions between China and the United States are increasing again, despite the recent tariff of the rate.

The Trump administration has threatened to “aggressively” visas for Chinese students while restricting the sale of chips design software to China. Beijing has also maintained firm control in rare earth exports to the US.

Asia and Europe have a common interest in preventing the disintegration of the global order and reinforcing the defense against the “revisionist” countries that seek to control the areas, of the periphery of Europe and the archipelagos in the South China Sea, Macron said, taking subtle screens in the actions of Beijing in the disputed waters.

“If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without restriction, without any restriction, without any reaction of the global order, how could I express what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something that happened happened? [in the Philippines?]”The president said.

China and the Philippines have been locked in a confrontation on islands and reefs in dispute in recent years. Manila displays missions to supply a small garrison of troops living aboard an aging warship that was deliberately hidden in 1999 to protect his maritime statements.

Beijing has claimed almost the entire sea of ​​southern China as its waters, despite a 2016 ruling of the Permanent Arbitration Court that said that China’s claim has no basis under international law. China has refused to recognize that result.

There is also Taiwan, which China has claimed as its own territory, and has been flexing its military muscle by sending naval aircraft and boats that surround the island governed democratically.

China’s Minister of Defense, Dong Jun, did not attend the summit this year and Beijing has sent a lower level delegation of the National University of the Popular Liberation Army. The Minister of Defense, in the Shangri-la Dialogue last year, warned that any force destined to separate Taiwan from China would face “self-destruction” and emphasized it as “the core of our central interest.”