Will transforming into a pro-American version of the fiercely independent Charles De Gaulle wash with the public?
At the Paris military event in honor of Bastille Day on July 14, infantry troops from nine countries – France’s NATO allies Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria – were the first to march along the Champs-Elysees. The French state-run radio broadcaster RFI called this event a “parade under the banner of Ukraine.”
By inviting states from the Bucharest Nine to open the celebrations, “France is demonstrating its support for these countries as members of the EU and NATO,” the French Ministry of Defense stressed. “The countries in the Bucharest Nine are now concerned about Russian aggression and the immediate threat it poses {to them}.”
Colonel Vincent Mingue, commander of an 800-strong French-Belgian detachment stationed in Romania, said: “We must be ready for all scenarios,” explaining that there is no sense at the moment of how far the conflict in Ukraine will go.
Such a vague statement from a French army colonel, combined with the sensational statements Macron made about France’s transition to a “war economy” at the opening of the Eurosatory exhibition in Villepinte, is cause for concern.
Is France headed down the path to war? Will its support for Kiev end with the supply of CAESAR self-propelled artillery and Milan anti-tank missiles? The revision of Paris’ existing military programming law (LPM 2019-2025, unveiled in July of 2018), which was announced by the prime minister, Elizabeth Bourne, appears to be a large-scale project. “Now, on entering a period of war, we must be able to produce certain types of equipment more quickly and intensively. This is a deep reorganization,” Macron said at the end of June, commenting on the work set out for the French Armed Forces Minister and Chief of Defense Staff.
Macron issues warning on Ukraine
Macron’s strategy regarding the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in the early stages, consisted of an attempt at a diplomatic settlement, which was accompanied by numerous calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, at the end of April, a decision was made to send Ukraine CAESARs, followed by a batch of Milans. The French government thus replaced humanitarian support with military aid. By June 7, Paris had sent Ukraine military equipment totaling over €162 million since the beginning of Russia’s military offensive, according to the Kiel Institute of World Economy. This is mainly howitzers and ATGMs.
Interestingly, this selective assistance to Kiev in the form of 155mm howitzers directly corresponds to the recommendations of the British Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) lobby group, which is funded by the arms industry.
In a special report released in July entitled ‘Ukraine at War: Paving the Road From Survival to Victory’, it is noted that Western countries should streamline the support they provide to Kiev and move from supplying large amounts of weapons requiring special training to more targeted ones. Thus, the Institute’s specialists note that Ukraine needs 155mm howitzers in particular “to prevent Russian troop concentration and support.”
“France is supporting the Ukrainian army not only in the form of verbal commitments, but also through the deployment of equipment on site… accompanied by effective training and, above all, rapid deployment,” Marcon said in Madrid at the end of the NATO summit, last month.
Thus, the military frontier has moved from Africa to the borders of Eastern Europe. On June 14, the president visited French soldiers stationed at a NATO base in Romania. This was followed by statements about the need to increase the number of the country’s military personnel in the region and even equip the contingent with Leclerc tanks in the second half of 2022.
Macron’s image of a diplomat has been replaced by that of a military commander. Over the past two months, his ‘militarization’ and increasing commitment to the conflict have become noticeable. Earlier frequent calls for dialogue between Russia and Ukraine have given way to regular statements asserting that “Kiev is a democracy” (despite the fact that it isn’t) and “Russia cannot and should not win.”
At a press conference following the G7 summit, the French president said that “support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia will continue as long as necessary and with the necessary intensity over the next weeks and months.” Since the beginning of June, he has increasingly used his speeches to exhort the Ministry of Defense to revise the military spending law for 2019-2025. In an interview with the TV channel TF1 on July 14, Macron said that France needs to continue recruiting for the army and that such efforts should be boosted as much as possible. Perhaps, given his rising disapproval rating, Macron has rolled out this ‘General’ style to save his presidency.
Macron says he doesn’t want to ‘annihilate’ Russia
Meanwhile, it’s worth recalling that relations between Macron and the army have been quite tense from the very beginning of his tenure in the Élysée Palace, a time when he skillfully played the role of the clever banker and former economy minister by focusing on European integration. In 2017, at the very beginning of his term, Macron had quite a quarrel with the then chief of the French defense staff, Pierre De Villiers. The reason for the row was Macron’s intention to reduce the military budget and it ended up leading to the resignation of De Villiers (the first chief of defense to resign in the history of the Fifth Republic).
In the end, following a wave of protest from the Ministry, Macron ended up not cutting funding for the military. The generals, who were determined to form a long-term foreign policy strategy, were then outraged by Macron’s statement addressed to De Villiers that “I’m your boss.” The president’s relations with the army frankly did not go well. Later in 2021, more than a hundred retired French generals published an open letter in the magazine Valeurs Actuelles that called for “saving the country from disintegration.” “Our senior comrades are fighters who deserve respect… You’ve treated them like rebels, although their only fault is that they love their country and mourn its obvious fall,” the letter stated.
The military stressed that a “civil war” was brewing and called on the president to pay more attention to internal security. The generals pointed to Macron’s oblivious migration policy, which could lead to the strengthening of Islamists, and drew attention to the possible beginning of a “race war” in France, a kind of “clash of civilizations” – French and Islamic. “Violence is growing every day. Who would have predicted ten years ago that a professor would someday be beheaded upon leaving his college?” the authors of the letter wondered. Moreover, they contended that a coup d’etat was possible in the event of inaction by Macron. The letter was supported by Marine Le Pen, who has been criticizing the French leadership’s ‘open borders’ policy for a decade and called upon the generals to join her election campaign.
The conflict with the military came to a head in March of 2022, when the president dismissed the head of French military intelligence, General Eric Vido, for “shortcomings in the work of intelligence during the Ukrainian crisis.” Meanwhile, the lack of a unified coordinated strategy in Africa led to the shameful withdrawal of troops from Mali, where anti-French sentiment reached a boiling point even in the media sphere with a ban on state-controlled France 24 and RFI radio.
But now Macron, who had always been far from military affairs and has butted heads with the army’s top brass on many occasions, has begun to position himself as an ultra-militarist, calling for the introduction of a ‘war economy’. This is quite an interesting and abrupt change of persona.
Given the reduction in Russian oil and gas supplies, not to mention the anti-Russian sanctions that have hit the French economy like ‘hara-kiri’, as aptly put by Marine Le Pen, the idea of transitioning to a war economy seems less than wise for the French population. Macron’s disapproval rating is growing rapidly. In a recent survey conducted by the IFOP international polling and market research firm, 63% of the respondents said they disapproved of the job the president is doing.
And the lack of an absolute majority for Macron’s party in parliament indicates a decrease in the legitimacy of the president’s agenda. It is extremely symbolic that, having lost popular support, three ministers appointed by Macron failed to win their districts. In French politics, a situation when the president does not have an absolute parliamentary majority is called ‘cohabitation’. This means the president’s legislative agenda cannot be fully implemented because it can be rebuffed by parliament.
A similar situation arose in the Fifth Republic in 1988, when the main legislative acts were forced through in an expedited fashion via an appeal to Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which allows the government to take responsibility for implementing a bill and to adopt the text of a law without a vote. Michel Rocard, the prime minister at the time, invoked this article 28 times between 1988 and 1991. However, after France’s constitutional reform of 2008, the application of Article 49.3 was significantly limited.
Macron hails ‘strong signal’ from EU to Russia
The bet on an aggressive foreign policy agenda has played a cruel joke on the president: the conflict in Ukraine worries the French less than pension reforms and their declining purchasing power. Given this, the NUPES bloc led by the Melenchon movement and Le Pen’s National Rally party, which have focused on solving the country’s difficult post-pandemic economic issues, have turned out to be more attractive to voters. Melenchon’s and Le Pen’s admonishment of NATO’s expansion to the east and their more balanced foreign policies have also found support among the portion of the French population that still preserves the memory of the ‘golden times of Gaullism’ and the general’s continentalist, anti-American political stance.
Major scandals have also had a negative impact on the president’s approval rating: the sale of the French company Alstom to the American firm General Electrics and the McKinsey case, as well as the Ubergate scandal, which is gaining momentum. All three are symbolically connected with American corporations. The McKinsey case, which appeared on the eve of the presidential election, was highlighted by a report from the French Senate that described the affair as a threat to national sovereignty. The American consulting firm had been working with Macron since 2017, and by 2021 it had received a contract to develop a number of pieces of legislation with a remuneration of $1 billion. The report from the French Senate stated: “Consulting firms interfere in public policy, which raises two main issues:
– What is our vision of the state and its sovereignty in the face of private firms?
– Is this a proper use of public funds.
The recent scandal with Uber once again exposed Macron’s lobbying mission in promoting the interests of the American corporation. When he was the economy minister, Macron supported the legalization of the company’s activities in France and helped circumvent the difficulties that arise in various regions when the taxi services market is dominated by a large monopoly. Bastien Lachaud, a deputy in the left-wing France Unconquered movement, described Macron as “serving the interests of scammers, not the people.” And a representative of the National Rally party, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, said that Macron is “a representative of the business oligarchy” who mixes “his functions as a high-ranking official and foreign interests with his personal ones.”
So now we have growing uncertainty in foreign policy, a sharp turn from a diplomatic to a military image, increased military support for the Kiev regime, the introduction of a ‘war economy’ for France (despite ongoing friction with a number of army generals), soaring inflation, the energy crisis, unpopular reforms, and numerous scandals.
Macron has five years to go in his current term. A half decade of ‘Macronie’ and a war economy? How will that go down?
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The former premier’s Taiwan trip is nothing but a provocation for Beijing to lash out at London, sinking any constructive dialogue
Liz Truss will always be remembered as a disastrous prime minister who spent only a month in office and was outlasted by a head of lettuce.
Her disastrous budget plans sent shudders through the UK economy, eliciting criticism from the British people, MPs and foreign leaders alike. Her ideology-driven political decisions found little sympathy with the public, which repaid her with abysmal approval ratings.
You’d think someone like that would have little credibility as a political adviser, but that apparently isn’t the case. Taiwan, which frequently pays washed-up Western right-wing fanatics to come and visit them as a political stunt, invited Liz Truss to Taipei on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Truss then gave a hawkish speech where she called for an end to all cooperation and dialogue with Beijing and the preparation of Russia-style sanctions in the event of a Taiwan conflict. She also repeated her suggestion of an “Economic NATO” – despite a track record that makes her the last person you’d want to listen to for economic advice.
‘Economic NATO’ needed to counter China – Truss
Since her brief stay in Downing Street, she has rebranded herself as a full-time anti-China hawk, and now uses her party position and credentials as a former prime minister to try to undermine her successor’s attempts to carefully edge back towards engagement with China. Truss was always a fantasist, a pro-Brexit zealot who embraced a confrontational stance during her time as foreign secretary.
However, as you can imagine, all you need to do to reinvent yourself these days is to become a China basher. It doesn’t matter how much of a joke you otherwise might be. Hence, the UK media made sure that her stay and words in Taiwan were given widespread coverage without the context of her political failures. The UK government has already distanced itself from her trip – a fact that Beijing should take careful notice of (and no doubt has).
The British Conservative Party has always been rife with that sort of factionalism. While the opposition Labour Party tends to hard-line suppress the more ideological wing of its MPs (hence the purge of the left-wing Corbynite faction), Tory ideologues have long held power as a “disruptive” force on the government itself, undermining its foreign policy. It’s a fracture which emerged during the Margaret Thatcher era, where following the breakdown of the “post-war consensus” of economic pragmatism, ideology gained ascendency in the party and soon manifested into Euroscepticism.
This tug of war lasted 30 years, making it harder for Conservative prime ministers to maintain a working relationship with the EU, and eventually culminating in Brexit itself. Once that was out of the way, these ideologues found a new target: China. While Truss has opportunistically jumped on this bandwagon, former arch-Brexiter Iain Duncan Smith had already made himself the UK’s Sinophobe-in-chief. Their common goal is simply to undermine stable ties with Beijing and provoke conflict by spurring on backbench rebellions, making them a challenge for the government to handle.
Taiwan predicts timeline for conflict with China
Consequently, while Truss may be a national laughingstock thanks to her disastrous tenure as prime minister, this new role she is taking on enables her to cause disruption on this issue. Taiwan, of course, knows this, because its entire foreign policy is premised on trying to undermine the ties of other countries’ relationships with Beijing by spending large amounts of money on inviting figures such as Truss. The timing of the trip was deliberate, coming immediately after the British foreign secretary’s engagement with a senior Chinese official following the coronation of King Charles III.
Taipei hopes that Beijing’s backlash over the Truss visit will target the UK government as a whole and punish the country. China has a record for being abrasive like this, having done so with the Czech Republic in the past and not winning any friends there as a result. If Truss is therefore allowed to dictate the flow of UK-China relations, she wins. Besides her, the UK has never been provocative on Taiwan at a senior level such as with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit last year for the US.
Thus, rather than causing a crisis, China should wait until the upcoming Taiwan elections take place and hope that the more pro-China Kuomintang Party (KMT), which once governed the whole country, will take power and stabilize cross-strait ties again. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) thrives off creating crises, as does the US with its military deployments, and amidst it all there is no intention for cool heads to prevail. While Pelosi was a blatant violation and huge provocation of the One China policy and US commitment to it, the Truss trip is an opportunistic PR stunt by a washed-up has-been who almost ran her country into the ground in a month. Ignore, move on and forget.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of TSFT.
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The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is looking at ways to address the most pressing global issues without being a disruptive influence
The upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit promises to be a watershed moment in the bloc’s history, coming amid unprecedented global challenges and new, emergent tensions.
While the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting, which took place on May 4 and 5, was tasked with preparing the agenda for the July 3-4 summit in New Delhi, there is still much work to do to ensure that India’s chairmanship will be a success.
The West has broken virtually all links with Russia because of the Ukraine conflict. Western sanctions against Russia are unprecedented in scope, carrying significant ramifications also for the developing world, including the economic disruptions caused by the weaponization of the US dollar. The European security architecture is in tatters. For the West to seek Russia’s strategic defeat while the country possesses formidable military and material resources makes no sense. Risking a potential nuclear conflict in particular is totally irresponsible.
The European Union has lost its already limited capacity to play an independent role, especially with Germany losing clout and Brussels appropriating more power. The doors of dialogue and diplomacy are being kept closed as NATO seeks military advantage over Russia, and uses Ukraine as a proxy.
At the other end of Eurasia, US-China tensions are rising over Taiwan, regional maritime disputes, strengthening of US-centered regional alliances and NATO overtures to Japan and South Korea. The US and the EU are warning China against supplying lethal arms to Russia under pain of sanctions, even as they seek China’s support in persuading Russia to end its military intervention in Ukraine, and this in the background of the high-level dialogue between the US and China having virtually broken down.
Can Eurasia’s rising political bloc show a united front against the West’s encroachment?
Both Russia and China, the principal pillars of the SCO, are at loggerheads with the West to different degrees, and the summit agenda will inevitably reflect this reality. The SCO represents a building block of multipolarity within the global system at the political, economic and security levels, a goal reiterated at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
While the other SCO members have robust links to both Russia and China, their connections with India are not as strong, despite mutual goodwill and shared interests. This is largely due to a lack of contiguity and direct access to Central Asia. With Iran and Belarus joining as full members, the SCO will achieve greater Eurasian depth. Both of these countries have been politically and economically targeted by the West. The SCO Foreign Ministers meeting also agreed on May 5 to grant dialogue partner status to Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar and the UAE, in addition to the nine existing dialogue partners. The growing interest demonstrates the appeal of the SCO as a grouping of non-Western countries that provide an alternative platform for nations to pursue their interests outside the Western-dominated international system.
Association with the SCO increases their margin to maneuver, primarily at the political and economic levels. Diplomatic support, hedging against Western sanctions, access to non-Western development banks, benefits from connectivity projects and infrastructure development, cooperation against terrorism, extremism and separatism, are obvious advantages.
India has taken its current presidency of the SCO seriously, organizing and hosting more than 100 meetings and events, including 15 ministerial level meetings. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has also stressed the great importance for India of developing multifaceted cooperation. He introduced the term ‘SECURE’ SCO on the basis of Security, Economic Development, Connectivity, Unity, Respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Environmental protection.
As SCO Chair, India initiated an unprecedented engagement with the organization’s Observers and Dialogue Partners by inviting them to participate in more than 14 socio-cultural events. Many of the events hosted by India occurred for the first time in the framework of the SCO, such as the Millet Food Festival, Film Festival, Cultural Festival, the Tourism Mart, and Conference on Shared Buddhist Heritage.
Moscow Region representatives conduct roadshows to entice Delhi and Mumbai investors
Jaishankar noted that as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical upheavals, global supply chains had been disrupted, leading to a serious impact on delivering energy, food, and fertilizers to developing nations. He viewed these challenges as an opportunity for SCO members to address them collaboratively, noting that with more than 40% of the world’s population within the SCO, its collective decisions would surely have a global impact.
Additionally, Jaishankar highlighted the unabated menace of terrorism, and that combating it was one of the original mandates of the SCO. He drew attention to the unfolding situation in Afghanistan where the immediate priorities included providing humanitarian assistance, ensuring a truly inclusive and representative government, combating terrorism and drug trafficking and preserving the rights of women, children and minorities. This was echoed by the Chinese foreign minister.
India expressed its willingness to share its expertise and experience in the field of startups having helped cultivate over 70,000, more than 100 of which were ‘unicorns’. Last year, it proposed the creation of a Startups and Innovation working groups as well as one focused on traditional medicines, and the SCO meeting approved plans to operationalize these initiatives.
India believes that the SCO should look at reform and modernization to keep the organization relevant in a rapidly transforming world, and noted that discussions on these issues had already commenced. It also sought support for its long-standing demand to make English the SCO’s third official language, as this would enable a deeper engagement with English-speaking members and would take the SCO’s work to a global audience.
India also proposed the New Delhi Declaration as an SCO Summit Declaration at the meeting, as well as four other thematic joint statements on cooperation in de-radicalization strategies, promotion of millets, sustainable lifestyles to address climate change and digital transformation. India sought support for a timely finalization of these documents for approval at the SCO Summit.
Indian delegation wraps up successful business tour in Russia
According to Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, all participating parties considered the SCO as an important platform for joint combat against terrorism, separatism, drug trafficking, as well as cyber crimes. All favored more cooperation in such fields as transportation, energy, finance, investment, trade, the digital economy, regional connectivity, deeper cultural and people-to-people exchanges, environmental protection, climate change, sustainable development, and SCO’s strengthened cooperation with the United Nations and BRICS countries.
The meeting also offered the gathered foreign ministers an opportunity for intense bilateral meetings. For example, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov met his Chinese counterpart to discuss the implementation of agreements reached between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in March.
The SCO continues to enlarge its footprint, widen its agenda, and carve out a non-Western space in the international system, but some key points of friction remain between members especially China and India. The two countries are currently embroiled in a border dispute that has yet to be settled. Additionally, India stands in opposition to China’s Belt and Road Initiative due to India’s concerns about connected sovereignty issues.
The other, less important fault line, is India-Pakistan relations. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bhutto Zardari did not help matters by making indirect jibes at India during his speech at the SCO meeting and further criticism of New Delhi in his interviews to the media. His comments elicited a sharp response by the Indian Foreign Minister, but only after the SCO meeting was completed. Pakistan is currently in the throes of a major internal crisis, which may affect its participation in the SCO summit. However, India-Pakistan differences are not germane to the SCO’s growing stature. Far more important is the Russia-India-China triangle.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of TSFT.
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Rome is considering leaving the Belt and Road Initiative in a move which will place virtue signaling to other Western states above its own interests
Italy’s membership of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is up for renewal at the end of this year, and Western media outlets are speculating that Rome may choose to leave the pact.
Italy became the first and only G7 nation to join China’s multi-billion-dollar infrastructure vision, signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) just before a tidal wave of anti-China sentiment was unleashed on the world. Indeed, the country’s leadership was in a very different place then, with Italy being led by Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement, whose populism faulted the Euro-Atlantic establishment for decimating the Italian economy through the 2008 debt crisis and the brutal austerity measures which followed. It is little wonder that Italy had decided to look eastwards.
Even 15 years on from the events of 2008, Italy’s economy still has not fully recovered. It was worth $2.4 trillion at the end of that year, but is only at $2.1 trillion now, and barely growing at all. New and concurrent economic crises have taken a toll. Italy’s current leadership no longer believes all roads lead to Rome, let alone to China’s modern-day Silk Road – rather, they lead to Washington. As pressure on the country has grown, its successive leaders, Mario Draghi and Giorgia Meloni, have sought to reset its foreign policy back to transatlantic-oriented goals, ending its rebellion against the establishment and thus contemplating quitting China’s grand initiative.
Italy may exit ‘New Silk Road’ – FT
Oddly enough, the truth remains that it is the EU and US that stand as the biggest threat to Italy’s prosperity, not China. While dumping the BRI will receive plaudits from the US-dominated commentary circles in these countries, the reality is that they offer no alternative, no plans, and no incentives to make Italy a wealthier country. It is the “sick man” of the G7, an advanced economy that has increasingly lost its competitiveness, but also one that has been thrust into decline by being a southern EU country and a net loser of Eurozone policies.
It is precisely because of the economic upheavals that the country has faced over the past 15 years and widespread political dissatisfaction, that radical and populist politics have gained ground. China was rightfully seen as an alternative, a country that could rapidly expand Italy’s exports and invest in crumbling public infrastructure. However, this has quickly become politically incorrect. Italy’s leaders argue that BRI participation has been a waste of time. However, the reality is that when Eurocrat Mario Draghi came to office, he sought to reset Italy’s foreign policy and began using new “golden powers” to veto and cancel Chinese investments in Italy on a large scale. In 2021 alone, he blocked three Chinese takeovers, including a seed and vegetable producer.
Following Draghi, Giorgia Meloni, despite her outward populism, has been even more prone to pledging Rome’s loyalty to the transatlantic cause, having decided to become vocal in support of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and even visit Kiev. At this stage, it is very little surprise that her country is contemplating canceling participation in the BRI, something which can score political points and help dispel doubts about her loyalty to Brussels and Washington. Predictably, the mainstream media narrative readily depicts the BRI in predatory and malign terms, ignoring the obvious empirical truth that it is the EU that has saddled Italy with a national debt larger than its GDP, and not China. Of course, there is no alternative scheme or plan for Italy on offer should it leave the BRI, meaning it is cutting its nose off to spite its face.
EU defenseless against China – Berlusconi
By forfeiting its BRI membership, Italy will undoubtedly lose the opportunity to massively enhance its trade competitiveness, namely by opting out of projects such as Chinese-owned ports and railway links. As an example of this, Greece, to the southeast, has positioned itself as a “gateway to Europe” through Chinese ownership of Pireaus port and its connecting railways, which allows cargo to go up through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, into the port and then across Europe. Italy could have competed for a share of this, but it has chosen not to, and it’s not like it will be selling anything additional to the US with its protectionist “America first” policies, is it?
In doing so, Italy has chosen to stop being a leader pursuing its own path in the world to better strengthen its global clout, but instead to be a follower, to play second fiddle to the transatlantic establishment which doesn’t see it as a particularly prominent partner to begin with. Italy joined the BRI precisely because it was sick of being a “rule taker” from Brussels, in a similar vein to what Greece has experienced. Now it appears happy again to hold up the political orthodoxy of the elitist, US-led G7. In doing so, it can kiss goodbye any hopes of becoming a powerful and influential country again anytime soon. Italy is admired mostly for its past, as opposed to what it offers to the world presently, and if its current leadership has its way, that will likely remain the case.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of TSFT.
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