In Beijing, French business community welcomes Macron's overtures
06/04/2023 07:32
BEIJING, April 6 (Reuters) - Among the French business
executives travelling to Beijing with President Emmanuel Macron,
the mood was cautiously sanguine on the thawing post-pandemic
trade prospects with China, with some rejecting American-led
calls for 'decoupling'.
Macron travelled to China with a 50-strong delegation of
business leaders including the CEOs of Airbus AIR.PA , Alstom
ALSO.PA and EDF EDF.PA , raising eyebrows among some
diplomats that this could blur the message of firmness the West
wants to send at a time of heightened tension between Beijing
and the United States.
In the French embassy's gardens, where Macron addressed the
French community on Wednesday evening, the president's rejection
of what he called an "inescapable spiral" of tension that would
lead to cutting off ties with China was broadly welcomed.
"It's very good that the president came. It shows the
business community is supported by the president, it's very
important vis-à-vis the Chinese authorities," Thierry de la Tour
d'Artaise, chairman of French appliance group SEB SEBF.PA ,
told Reuters.
"People don't know this country well, a lot of the things
being said are untrue," he said. "I don't think the Americans
ask for our opinion when they travel here, so it's very good for
France to do its own things and bear responsibility for it."
His company, which sells wok pans, blenders and rice cookers
under the Supor brand name, is the leader in small kitchen
appliances in China, he said.
The size of Macron's business delegation was criticised by
some commentators, though.
"Three-quarters of the delegation are business leaders: the
goal is first and foremost to sign contracts," Raphael
Glucksmann, a left-wing member of the European parliament, wrote
on Twitter ahead of Macron's visit.
"At a time the debate in Europe focuses on our suicidal
dependency on China and Chinese interference, the message is
inopportune," he said.
But asked by Reuters whether there was any contradiction
between European leaders' call to "de-risk" their relationship
with China and his major business offensive, Macron himself
rejected this argument.
"Strategic autonomy doesn't mean autarky," Macron said after
the speech at the embassy.
France had been cautious not to let its strategic telecoms
operators and energy providers fall under non-European
ownership, but there were still business opportunities in
sectors where national security was not a risk, such as
agriculture, Macron said.
"It's the difference between de-risking and decoupling," he
said.
Operating in China still presented challenges for French
businesses, China-based French expats said.
"They're pushing us to transfer technology and we refuse.
It's a game of cat and mouse, but we still manage to do great
things," a Beijing-based engineer working for French aerospace
company Safran told Reuters.
(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
((michel.rose@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichelReuters))