中国国家主席习近平对法国总统马克龙的国事访问给予了异常奢华的欢迎，一些分析人士认为，这表明北京为对抗美国而在欧盟内部招揽关键盟友的攻势越来越猛。两位领导人周五一起访问了中国南方，马克龙将与习近平在其父亲的故居中喝中国茶。外交官们说，这凸显了北京对与欧盟一个重要成员的这种关系的重视。
马克龙与欧盟委员会主席乌苏拉-冯德莱恩一起前往中国，两人都在乌克兰问题上向中国施压，但未能从习近平那里争取到任何公开立场的转变。不过，马克龙还是得到了完整的红地毯待遇，而冯德莱恩在出访前的一次批评讲话中把中国描述为 “镇压”，她在北京的形象有时显得很落寞。中国国家支持的《环球时报》周四在一篇社论中说，成为华盛顿的战略附庸是一个死胡同。
= 在华盛顿，人们对中国与法国的外交接触持某种程度的怀疑态度，美国对欧洲与北京在乌克兰问题上的接触采取了观望态度。中国向马克龙示好是今年一系列外交行动的一部分，因为中国试图在台湾问题、乌克兰战争和美国主导的技术出口限制的分歧中摆脱美国的遏制。中国和欧盟的接触将在未来几周内继续进行，外交政策负责人Josep Borrell和德国外长将在北京举行会议。
China’s President Xi Jinping has given French President Emmanuel Macron an unusually lavish welcome on a state visit, which some analysts see as a sign of Beijing’s growing offensive to woo key allies within the European Union to counter the United States. The two leaders visited southern China together on Friday, where Macron was due to drink Chinese tea with Xi in a former residence of his father. Diplomats say it underlines the importance Beijing attaches to this relationship with a key member of the EU.
Macron traveled to China with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, both pressuring China on Ukraine, but failing to wrest any public shifts in position from Xi. Still, Macron was given the full red carpet treatment, while von der Leyen, who described China as “repressive” in a critical speech before her trip, cut a sometimes forlorn figure in Beijing. China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on Thursday that being a strategic vassal of Washington is a dead end.
= In Washington, China’s diplomatic engagement with France is being viewed with a degree of scepticism, with the U.S. taking a wait-and-see approach to the European engagements with Beijing over Ukraine. China’s wooing of Macron is part of a flurry of diplomatic moves this year as it attempts to wriggle out of containment by the United States amid differences over Taiwan, the Ukraine war and U.S. led restrictions on technology exports. China-EU engagement will continue in the coming weeks, with foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Germany’s foreign minister due in Beijing.