‘When Europe bowed to Beijing’

This is apropos four letters to the Editor from this writer carried by the newspaper on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday. Macron’s journey to China was short in duration but enormous in implication.

It marked the moment when Europe, confronted with economic pressure from the United States and geopolitical instability across the West, turned toward China not out of ideological sympathy but out of necessity, realism, and strategic foresight. The three days Macron spent in China may well shape the next three decades of European foreign policy.

This visit did not elevate China; China was already elevated. What it did was exposed Europe’s recognition of that rise. It revealed a world in transition—a world where China is the gravitational center, where the Belt and Road has redrawn economic maps, where development is measured in corridors rather than conflicts, and where Europe must choose between decline through dependency or renewal through diversification.

Macron chose renewal. And by choosing China, he has signaled to the world that the era of unquestioned American primacy is slipping away, replaced by a multipolar reality where China stands at the forefront.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025