France heads into Chinese storm

2008-12-05 16:05

Paris - France's ties with China are to be put to the test as President Nicolas Sarkozy defies angry warnings of trade sanctions from Beijing to hold his first meeting with the Dalai Lama on Saturday.

China has warned that multi-billion-dollar deals are at stake if Sarkozy sits down with the Tibetan spiritual leader for talks during a gathering of Nobel Peace laureates in the Polish city of Gdansk.

France is digging in its heels, saying the meeting will go ahead and calling for economic ties to be spared from retribution, especially during the financial crisis.

"We cannot have France's conduct dictated to, even by our friends," said Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

"We hope that our contacts with China, with the Chinese people, will be maintained as they are now, fraternal and very close."

Already Beijing has taken the unprecedented step of scrapping an EU-China summit that was to be held under France's high-profile EU presidency to discuss the impact of the financial crisis on China and its biggest export market.

Analysts expect China to follow through on its threats although it remains unclear how far Beijing will take its campaign to punish foreign leaders who meet with the Dalai Lama, whom it considers a separatist.

"This was to be expected," said Valerie Niquet, director of the Asia centre at the French Institute of International Relations.

"Trade between France and China rests largely on state contracts in aviation and energy and they are very vulnerable to reprisals. It will be easy for Beijing to announce that a contract is cancelled, or to be re-negotiated or slowed down."

Sarkozy clinched contracts to sell Airbus planes and two nuclear power plants, totalling about $30bn, during a visit to China in November.

"The biggest reprisal has been cancelling the summit," said John Fox, a former British diplomat to Beijing and senior fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

"The Chinese are really taking a stand, but what this is going to do is provoke European leaders to discuss China in a more critical way."

China hit back at Germany after Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the exiled leader at her office in Berlin in September last year.

Sarkozy had sought to deflect Beijing's anger by meeting the Dalai Lama on foreign soil, away from the pageantry of the Elysee presidential palace.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took a similar approach when he chose Lambeth Palace and not Downing Street as the venue for his meeting with the Buddhist leader in May.

The decision to meet with the Dalai Lama is the latest in a string of rows that have left Sarkozy struggling to keep relations on an even keel while deflecting criticism at home of being soft on Beijing.

There were Chinese boycotts of French products after pro-Tibet protests in April marred the Olympic torch relay in Paris and Sarkozy threatened to stay away from the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

The French leader in the end attended the Olympics ceremony and sent his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and Kouchner to meet with the Dalai Lama when he visited France in August.

French officials say this recent time of troubles, coupled with the European parliament's decision to grant the Sakharov Priz to Chinese dissident Hu Jia, have caused an "overdose" of acrimony.

Analysts also point to the foreign policy shift under Sarkozy toward a more pro-US stance as a factor in the downturn in relations.

"France no longer plays its traditional role as a friend of China in a multi-polar world," said Niquet.

Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac had developed strong ties with China as part of his view of a multi-polar world - diplomatic code for opposing US influence.

- AFP