French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called for an end to the “confrontation” as he relaunched his strategy for the Asia-Pacific region after a bitter row over a canceled submarine deal with Australia.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, Macron described France as a balancing power in a region long dominated by the great power struggle between China and the United States.
The APEC summit comes days after a high-level meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that put an end to their escalating rivalry.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have soared in recent years over the future of self-governing Taiwan, human rights, trade and China’s increasing assertiveness.
“We don’t believe in hegemony, we don’t believe in confrontation, we believe in stability,” Macron said.
Regional powers like Paris – which has overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific Oceans including Réunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia – should play a role, he said.
“We’re in the jungle and we have two big elephants trying to get more and more nervous,” Macron said in his speech, which he gave in English.
“If they get very nervous and start a war, it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle. They need the cooperation of many other animals: tigers, monkeys and so on.”
Friday’s summit talks were dramatically overshadowed by North Korea’s recent long-range missile launch, which saw US Vice President Kamala Harris call for urgent talks with allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
– ‘Dynamic Balance’ –
Macron said a coordinated response was needed to tackle the intersecting crises facing the international community – from climate change to economic turmoil sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is to create a dynamic balance in this environment,” he said.
“How exactly to create a kind of stability and balance that cannot be the hegemony of either of these two cannot be the confrontation of the two great powers.”
France’s vocal involvement in the region comes after a difficult period last year, when Australia’s former Prime Minister Scott Morrison abruptly torpedoed a French deal to supply submarines for Canberra and instead struck a deal to buy US or British nuclear submarines -Booten announced.
The dispute capsized ties and threatened to derail an EU-Australia trade deal, but the two sides have reconciled since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took power.
Delivery of the new nuclear submarines could take years, potentially leaving Australia short of capacity at a time when China is increasing its clout in the region.
On Thursday, a day after meeting Albanese on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia, Macron said in Bangkok France was still ready to help fill the capacity gap.
But Albanese reiterated on Friday that Australia was moving forward with its deal as part of a security pact with the United States and Britain, saying “there is nothing ambiguous about that”.
Australia has a “very good cooperative relationship” with France, he said, adding that Macron “has the right as the leader of France to make any comments he wants”.
Closer to home, Macron identified Russia’s war in Ukraine as a major source of global instability and said all Asian nations must recognize their duty to act.
France is working to “build an increasing consensus to say that this war is your problem too, because it’s going to cause a lot of destabilization,” Macron said.
