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The president of France on Friday called for a “coalition of action” between European and Asian countries to protect the international order from coercive superpowers, as US President Donald Trump disrupts global trade and security.
Calling the division of the world between the US and China the biggest threat to the world, Emmanuel Macron said the two powers’ competition for global dominance presented others with impossible choices.
“We want to co-operate, but we don’t want to be instructed on a daily basis what is allowed, what is not allowed, and how our life will change because of the decision of a single government,” Macron said in a speech at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s biggest defence conference.
“France is a friend and an ally of the United States, and is a friend — and we do co-operate, even if sometimes we disagree — with China. And I do intend to remain so.”
Macron’s speech caps a three-country tour of the region during which he has been promoting France as an Indo-Pacific power.
The comments come as some Trump administration officials argue that European countries should focus their militaries on their own region and be less active in Asia.
Elbridge Colby, the number-three official at the Pentagon, has told European countries, including the UK, that they should focus on the Euro-Atlantic theatre. That came as Trump seeks to offload responsibility for the war in Ukraine to European countries.
The push has worried some European nations, which had been encouraged during the Biden administration to increase their security presence in the Indo-Pacific region to send a unified message to China.
Despite Colby’s message, other members of the Trump administration and some military officers believe they should continue to encourage European countries to have a security presence in the region, including by sending naval vessels through the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
France calls itself an Indo-Pacific power, with 1.5mn citizens in Indian and Pacific Ocean territories that command one of the world’s largest maritime areas. It has been expanding its military presence in the region in recent years, including a carrier strike group deployment that is currently under way.
Macron said that by succumbing to pressure by the two superpowers for other countries to choose a side, “we kill the global order, and we will destroy methodically all the institutions we created after the second world war”.
His message will resonate with some countries, particularly in south-east Asia, that have traditionally steered clear of blocs and want to maintain relations with both China and the US.
“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” said Macron.
“Our response must be to relaunch our efforts to develop sustainable trade, respectful of common social and environmental standards.”
