As President Emmanuel Macron made his way to Beijing last week for the first French presidential visit to China since the Covid pandemic, experts noted that the trip would require a “balancing act” in the aftermath of Beijing ally Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On his flight out of Beijing, however, Macron appeared to falter on the diplomatic tightrope when he insisted that Europe should set its own policy on Taiwan to avoid being “followers” of Washington’s “agenda” in the region.

In an interview with the Politico website and two other French news organisations, Macron noted that, “the question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction”.

The reaction across the Atlantic was swift and scathing. “Emmanuel Macron fancies himself a Charles de Gaulle for the 21st century, which includes distancing Europe from the US,” began a scorching Sunday editorial in the Wall Street Journal. “No one wants a crisis over Taiwan, much less to accelerate one, but preventing one requires a credible deterrent,” the editorial continued.

Macron’s visit last week came as Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a stopover in California, prompting Beijing to launch military exercises around the self-ruled island.

The three-day military drills, which began on Saturday, came a day after Macron left China. “People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated ‘Taiwan encirclement’ exercise,” noted the Politico report.

If China accommodated the French president’s schedule in its military exercise plans, it did little to alleviate Taiwan’s security concerns. Chinese warplanes and navy ships were still in the waters around the island on Tuesday, a day after the drills officially ended, said Taiwan’s defence ministry, sparking condemnations from Taiwanese politicians.

The fallout from Macron’s controversial comments was not limited to France’s overseas allies. Closer to home on the Continent, the French president’s call for European autonomy from US foreign policy exposed divisions within the EU.

As Macron landed in the Netherlands Tuesday for a state visit that included a speech on European sovereignty, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was boarding a flight for the US.

Speaking to reporters before boarding, Morawiecki stressed that the alliance with the US is “an absolute foundation” of European security. “Some Western leaders dream of cooperating with everyone, with Russia and with some powers in the Far East,” he said.

Morawiecki may not have named the leaders concerned, but the barbed comments left little doubt as to the target of his remarks.

Choppy waters in the Indo-Pacific

Macron has long advocated the concept of “strategic autonomy” for Europe and his comments on Taiwan reflected his emphasis on making sovereignty a priority for the 27-member EU bloc.

The roots of France’s “diplomacy of balance” date back, as the Wall Street Journal editorial suggested, to General Charles de Gaulle’s attempts to counterweigh US dominance. Under de Gaulle, France became the first Western nation to recognise the People’s Republic of China back in 1964.

But nearly 60 years later, with China flexing its military muscles on land and sea, many Western foreign policy experts have little patience for Macron’s balancing act.

Concerns are particularly heightened across the Indo-Pacific region, where the interests of the US, Japan, Australia, France, India and a number of Southeast Asian countries converge. With its overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific oceans, France considers itself an Indo-Pacific resident power.

“China is expanding in the South Pacific, France has important territories in the South Pacific, and you cannot just say, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, Taiwan is far away from the South Pacific,'” said June Teufel Dreyer, a political scientist at University of Miami, on FRANCE 24’s The Debate show. “China is also active in the South Pacific. So where do you say to China, ‘This is the place to stop’? Or do you end up in history looking like Neville Chamberlain?” she asked, referring to the British prime minister best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, enabling Adolf Hitler to expand German territory in the 1930s.

‘Strategic nonsense’, not strategic autonomy

With its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific and its “diplomacy of balance”, France has been wary of getting sucked into Sino-American rivalry and has supported multilateralism as a counterbalance to an increasing polarisation in the region.

That position, however, was easier to maintain before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and as Beijing draws closer to Moscow. While maintaining an officially “neutral” position on the Ukraine war, Beijing has increased its calls for a “multipolar” world order – a position echoed by Moscow – in a bid to counteract Washington’s “unipolar” hegemony.

In this context, Macron’s continued focus on “strategic autonomy” appears to take a leaf right out of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s diplomatic playbook.

Earlier this year, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi ruffled feathers at the Munich Security Conference when he lectured an audience of mostly European leaders about the EU’s foreign policy imperatives – as Beijing sees it.

“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about … what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” Wang told the gathering in Germany.

Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have long understood France’s fundamental foreign policy principle of strategic autonomy. But they were incensed over the timing of Macron’s latest comments, coming as Washington is investing billions in European security with its support for Ukraine and when Western unity is viewed as particularly important.

“Macron doesn’t want Europe to get ‘caught up in crises that are not ours,’ like Taiwan,” said Ivo Daalder, head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former adviser to former US president Barack Obama. “But he is perfectly fine with relying on US security commitments to address crises like Ukraine in Europe. That’s not ‘strategic autonomy.’ That’s strategic nonsense,” said Daalder in a Twitter post.

The optics of a weakening deterrence

The main problem, according to many experts, was the blurred messaging on deterrence, a foreign policy imperative in the age of Russian expansionism.

“I can certainly agree that Europe may not want to follow the US lead, but what I’m seeing quoted is that France has no stake in what happens with Taiwan. And that is an absolutely untenable project because this ends with the Chinese wanting to change the world and that would certainly affect France, and it would certainly affect all of Europe,” said Teufel Dreyer.

China is closely monitoring the international response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine with an eye on Taiwan, according to several experts. Macron’s comments suggested that if the US came to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, Europe could remain uninvolved.

“It weakens the deterrence. And if there was one lesson that we should have learned from Ukraine, it’s that we didn’t succeed in deterring Putin,” Antoine Bondaz, from the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, told AFP.

In its editorial, the Wall Street Journal noted that Macron’s “unhelpful comments will undermine U.S. and Japanese deterrence against China in the Western Pacific while encouraging U.S. politicians who want to reduce U.S. commitments in Europe to better resist China”.

‘Betrayal in terms of shared democratic principles’

As the backlash from Macron’s comments rippled across the Atlantic, the French presidential office attempted some damage control, but it did little to contain the controversy.

“Our position on Taiwan is constant. We support the status quo and maintain our exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan, which is a recognised democratic system,” a French presidential official told reporters on Tuesday.

But these clarifications failed to sway Taiwanese public opinion. Taipei has so far refrained from officially commenting on Macron’s remarks. While Taiwanese popular attention was focused on the Chinese military exercises, Brian Hioe, Taipei-based founding editor of the New Bloom online magazine, conceded that there was disappointment over the French president’s remarks.

“Macron’s comments are seen as somewhat disheartening because what people hope for are ties of alliance or ties of friendship on the basis of shared values,” Hioe told FRANCE 24’s The Debate. “In Taiwan, it’s being viewed as a betrayal in terms of shared democratic principles.”

Macron’s trip to China and his recent foreign visits are viewed in some French circles as an attempt to get away from the domestic crisis engulfing the country over his pension reform plan. France has witnessed major strikes since the start of the year, which peaked last month after the government rammed the pension reform bill through parliament using a controversial executive measure.

But on Tuesday afternoon, even a foreign visit offered no respite for Macron. At a theatre in The Hague, where the French president was giving a speech on European sovereignty, he was interrupted by hecklers.

“Where is French democracy?” shouted a protester as another unfurled a banner calling Macron “the president of violence and hypocrisy”.

At home and abroad, Macron will have to choose his words carefully as his plans for France meet opposition domestically and his vision of French foreign policy is met with scepticism overseas.