December 8th, 2008

For China, France is the EU’s Weak Point

Very tough interview in Le Monde – in French language only – of Jean-Vincent Brisset, Research Director at IRIS (Institut des Relations Internationales et Strategiques, France) last week, after China canceled the China-EU summit planned on Dec. 1st. Here are some excerpts.

Le Monde: Do you think the China-EU summit has been canceled because of the Tibetan question only ?

Jean-Vincent Brisset: The Dali Lama is just a pretext. China is focusing on France but the real target of all this is the unity of the Europeans countries. Chinese politicians think they can manage bilateral relations – except with the United States – but they know how much harder it is to manager multilateral relations. Since the French obtained an embargo on weapon trade in 1989, China tries to hamper the EU, because of its capacity to impose economic quotas, currency reevaluation, etc. They identified Nicolas Sarkozy as the weak point. Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel both received the Dalai Lama or did not assist the Olympics opening ceremonial.

Le Monde: France is the weak point then…

Jean-Vincent Brisset: It is, historically. When I was doing my time in the military, there was a saying, “Keep harassing one guy only, you will have one guy only yelling”. This is exactly what China is doing, as France is currently leading the UE Presidency.

But this attitude dates back to long ago, since French diplomats always had a deep admiration for China and and a total outdated understanding of this country. French believe that by being kind to people you can be paid the same in return. Amongst the countries which played a preeminent role in history, France has always been the weakest. France is considered as a female country and as the same time, China does respect powerful nations only.

Le Monde:The Olympic torch incident in Paris doesn’t help as well…

Jean-Vincent Brisset: France has been apologizing only since the beginning of this affair, following the chinese diplomatic tradition. Historically, a vassal State was submitting to China by offering presents. This is exactly what we did by sending Raffarin offering a present to Beijing.

Le Monde: How this was interpreted by Chinese ?

Jean-Vincent Brisset: To them, it is very clear ! France is a vassal State. This will be very difficult to catch up.

Le Monde: How to regain confidence and trust between the two countries ?

Jean-Vincent Brisset: Fortunately, a lot of European people begin to understand China is not such a friendly country. It’s a selfish country maintaining rough relationships with the rest of the world, and we should keep our distance with it. China is testing the power of the EU, not France. Should China gain to imposing economical retorsion measures toward France without any EU reactions, it would be a victory. On the contrary, if France puts the EU in front of the battle, this affair can find a smooth settlement. But if the EU shows some weakness, China could step then towards each of the European counties, except the UK which will always resist.

Ouch ! I told you this guy was rough… Interesting times indeed, let’s see what’s next for French.

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