France’s Macron Urges Europe Strategic Autonomy Amid US-China Tension
- Taiwan’s foreign minister says he’s watching Macron comments
- French leader spoke to media including Les Echos, Politico
Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron in Beijing on April 6.
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Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to develop more strategic autonomy as a way to avoid the risk of turning EU countries into “vassals” in the event of a global crisis such as a US-China confrontation.
“Strategic autonomy must be the battle of Europe,” the French president told the business daily Les Echos during last week’s visit to China. “We don’t want to depend on others for critical topics,” Macron said in the interview, published on Sunday, citing issues such as energy, defense, social media and artificial intelligence. Similar comments were published by Politico.