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Distinguished former French ambassador reflects on the importance of Xi’s Europe visit amid mounting global tensions

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Published: 6:00am, 10 Jun 2024Updated: 3:54pm, 11 Jun 2024

Maurice Gourdault-Montagne was a French diplomat from 1978 until 2019, serving as ambassador to Japan, Britain, Germany and China. He was former president Jacques Chirac’s senior diplomatic adviser and was also President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to the UAE. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.

Could I start by asking for your take on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Europe?

This trip was very important in terms of the tensions we are going through – between the United States and China globally, and a confrontation which is more regional, over the Pacific Ocean, as well as tensions between the European Union and China for various reasons, and tensions because of the geopolitics which are bringing us more fractures and fragmentation of the world.

So it was necessary that this visit took place, and it took place five years after President Xi last came to Europe.

And also in the background, it was an important reminder – and a celebration – of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China.

The celebrations were not totally coincidental because it was an opportunity to remind us that this [the establishment of ties] took place at a time of high tensions as well. It was the Cold War, it was the Vietnam war. It was just after the end of France’s colonisation of Algeria.

So a new world was coming, and there are some similarities regarding at least some of the tensions which exist [today] on the surface of the globe.

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