Macron is right, the EU should stay out of the Taiwan conflict.
French president Emmanuel Macron is no stranger to controversy, but his latest alleged gaff was in my eyes far less controversial than the press made it out to seem. Macron said in an interview that Europe should not blindly follow the US on the issue of Taiwan. On the surface the criticism of Macron’s comments makes sense; the and France and most of Europe are treaty allies which have a common interest in maintaining the US led global order. In reality though, US and EU interests diverge substantially and the fact that Macron is willing to openly admit to that shows how confident he is in the EU’s ability to chart its own geopolitical course.
The Taiwan situation is in my view likely to be the major flashpoint in international politics during the 2020’s. The US has under Biden’s term as president engaged in more pseudo diplomacy with the Taiwanese leadership while Biden himself keeps committing the US to Taiwan’s defense if the mainland were to attack. It is clear that the tensions across the Taiwan strait are high, and it makes sense for the EU to stay out of it. During the Cold War there was a sort of zero sum competition between east and west which subsumed most other conflicts, but as I’ve argued on the blog before I don’t think the rivalry between the US and China is a new Cold War, so it is unreasonable to assume that the EU will have to pick a side. I have been impressed with Macron’s public comments before; he infamously said that NATO is braindead, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with, and it is nice to see that he also understands the false dichotomy between east and west in the Taiwan strait.
Ultimately Taiwan is too far away, and trade with China too important for the EU to take a hard stance on Taiwan’s side of the conflict. It is obviously tragic to let an open and democratic society stand alone in the face of an autocratic giant with plans to absorb Taiwan, but you have to pick your battles. The EU and Europe more broadly was at the centre of the 20th century largely because that was the main frontier where the Soviet and Western powers met, but in a new century with new fault lines the centre of gravity is far from Europe. Let Macron be honest and say that Taiwan is a peripheral issue to Europe. If Kishida in Japan or Yoon in South Korea said that they would not intervene in a Taiwan strait crisis that would be grounds for worry, but Europe is far away and less important than it was.
If you liked this post you can read my last post about Taiwan here, or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by Jimmy Liao from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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