French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday urged an end to “confrontation” as he outlined his vision for France’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.
Macron is attending the 21-strong APEC summit in Bangkok as he seeks to relaunch France’s strategy for the region in the face of growing US-China competition.
France wants to play a stabilizing role in the region to avert confrontation, he told a gathering of business leaders on the sidelines of the summit.
“We don’t believe in hegemony, we don’t believe in confrontation, we believe in stability,” said Macron, who was invited to the APEC summit as a guest by the host country, Thailand.
Regional powers, including France — which has overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific oceans, including Reunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia — should play a role, he said.
“We are in the jungle and we have two big elephants, trying to become more and more nervous,” Macron said in his speech, which he gave in English.
“If they become very nervous and start war, it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle,” he said. “You need cooperation of a lot of other animals: tigers, monkeys and so on.”
Macron said that the international community was facing overlapping crises, from climate change to economic turmoil, and a coordinated response was needed.
“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment,” he said. “How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium, which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers.”
On Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he identified as a major source of global instability, he said all countries in Asia and elsewhere needed to recognize their duty to act.
Macron urged Asian countries to join the “increasing consensus” against the conflict in Ukraine, telling them the war was “your problem” too.
France is working to build “an increasing consensus in order to say this war is also your problem because it will create a lot of destabilization,” Macron said.
The rise of Asia to become an engine for global growth owes its success to trade “governed by common rules, global rules,” he said, adding that multiple crises have taken the world to a “tipping point.”
Additional reporting by AP
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