French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China yesterday in Chengdu, striking a more relaxed note after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) a day earlier. Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan Province.
Macron was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century BC and continues to provide water to the Sichuan Basin plain.
The French president said he was “very touched” by the gesture, a departure from official protocol. He had previously hosted Xi in the Pyrenees — where he had spent time as a child — in May last year.
Photo: Reuters
The trip was a sign of mutual trust and a desire to “act together” at a time when international tensions are rising, and trade imbalances are widening to China’s advantage, Macron said.
The two presidential couples parted ways after a lunch, with the Macrons continuing the trip independently.
Macron met with students in Chengdu, China’s fourth-largest city with 21 million inhabitants that is considered one of the most culturally and socially open in China.
Meanwhile, Brigitte Macron visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where two 17-year-old pandas, loaned to France in 2012 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy,” have just returned.
There, she was to meet Yuan Meng, the first giant panda born in France in 2017, to whom she is “godmother,” and who arrived in China in 2023.
The forests of Sichuan are home to numerous protected species, from snow leopards to giant pandas.
Through loans to zoos, China has made these bears emblematic ambassadors of its friendship with peoples from Japan to Germany.
Cubs born abroad are sent a few years later to Chengdu to participate in breeding and rehabilitation programs in the wild.
On Thursday in Beijing, the French president urged his Chinese counterpart to work toward ending the war in Ukraine, and to correct the trade imbalances with France and Europe.
Emmanuel Macron’s call for increased Chinese investment in France appears to have been heeded.
A letter of intent to this effect was signed on Thursday, with Xi stating his readiness to “increase reciprocal investments” for a “fair trading environment.”
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