‘When Europe bowed to Beijing’

This is apropos a letter to the Editor from this writer headlined “When Europe bowed to Beijing” carried by the newspaper yesterday. This writer would like to argue that when Macron arrived in Beijing on December 3, he did so not as a leader offering lectures, but as a leader seeking partnership.

His discussions with President Xi Jinping quietly acknowledged that China’s influence is no longer a projection or a forecast but a living reality.

The Belt and Road Initiative, once mocked by Western commentators as overly ambitious, has matured into the most successful development programme ever undertaken by a single nation. Through respect, partnership, and non-interference, China has offered world development without humiliation, loans without political diktats, and cooperation without exploitation. It has provided infrastructure to the neglected, dignity to the marginalized, and economic hope to nations locked out of Western financial systems. This is the geopolitical architecture that Macron is walking into, not as a skeptic but as a participant.

Macron’s visit was driven not by ceremony but by necessity. Europe’s economy has weakened under the weight of global shocks, strategic overdependence, and America’s increasingly punitive tariff regime.

President Donald Trump’s imposition of heavy tariffs on the European Union has rattled industries across the continent, from steel to aviation, from agriculture to automobiles. Europe finds itself wedged between American economic nationalism and its own industrial fragility. At this moment, Europe needs new markets, new partnerships, new supply pathways, and new investment ecosystems. China, with its immense consumer base, advanced technological capabilities, and resilient manufacturing structure, is the only country with the scale and stability to offer Europe a lifeline.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025