Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on a state visit to France. Xi has obvious goals in meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Xi’s political goal is a new world order that would supplant Pax Americana with Chinese global hegemony. He wants to cleave France from the United States. The Chinese Communist Party chairman also has an important economic agenda: forestalling European tariffs against Chinese exports and opening France and Europe more generally to the influence of Chinese technology while reducing U.S. technological superiority.
China knows that France is declining in the global economic order. France is the world’s seventh largest economy, but the GDP of France is only equivalent to 10% of U.S. GDP and just 16% of China’s GDP. Xi knows France wants access to the Chinese economy, especially the household sector. France enjoys a global comparative advantage in…
