Unsurprisingly, China was the key focus of this past weekend's G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Alongside the United States, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is concerned by China's increasingly aggressive posture. The U.S. and Japan recognize that a key Chinese strategic objective is to undermine the unity of democratic allies by leveraging vast investments alongside the dangling dagger of economic coercion. In turn, the G7's communique expressed concerns over Beijing's economic coercion and its policies on Taiwan, human rights, and the South China Sea.
The communique's China sections would have been stronger, however, had French President Emmanuel Macron not intervened to water them down.
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This French action was always predictable. As I noted last week, "We should expect to see Macron blocking more explicit G7 communiques on matters like Taiwan. I suspect we'll also see Macron making comments during the summit that emphasize the need to cooperate with China and avoid escalation over sensitive matters. This will be read-between-the-lines messaging to Xi that he has his back."
Now consider Reuters's report on how, following discussions by the G7, "the language of the communique was 'made a little more balanced,' a French presidential official said." That official insisted the "heart of the message we wanted to get across at this G7 was the European position that China is a partner, complements us and is a systemic rival, all presented in G7 language."
It's clear what's happened. The G7 forced Macron to choose between further alienating France's allies over his China appeasement and accepting a communique that identifies China's threat to international order. Macron saw his best option as a watered-down version of the latter option. But the French president is determined for Beijing to recognize that he is using his G7 influence on its behalf. That's why we had a pre-summit claim by one of Macron's officials that the G7 would offer a "positive message" seeking "cooperation" with China. And it's why an unnamed French official described the communique as underlining how China is a "partner" that "complements" the democratic world.
Xi Jinping appears to have received Macron's message as intended. While China was enraged by the communique, even summoning the Japanese ambassador in response to it, France has managed to escape Beijing's ire (although the newspaper, Le Monde, was targeted on Monday with a 900-word Chinese Embassy screed on its Taiwan reporting). Contrast this with Beijing's response to the United Kingdom.
Warning that China has the "intent to reshape the world order," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earned a fiery Chinese rebuke for his "malicious slanders." Beijing clearly senses how Sunak is attempting to have it both ways on China, keen as he is to maintain Britain's U.S. alliance and Japanese partnership while also seeking Chinese trade. Sunak's dual-approach strategy was underlined by his abandonment just before the G7 of a pledge to shutter Chinese Communist Party-linked Confucius Institutes in the U.K. But by attacking Sunak's comments and warning of ensuing "damage" (read economic coercion) to U.K.-China relations, Beijing is making clear it expects only obedience rather than nuance from its partners.
Macron has shown he remains obedient. China will reward him for it.