Xi will start the tour in Paris on Monday, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been stressing the idea of European strategic autonomy from the US. On a visit to Beijing last year, Macron courted controversy by saying France would not necessarily always align with the US in foreign policy, an apparent reference to American support for the self-governing republic of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.
France sees Xi’s visit, which officially marks 60 years of French-Chinese diplomatic relations, as an important diplomatic moment, and wants to focus on China’s broader relations with the EU. Macron invited European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to the talks Monday. Xi is also visiting Budapest, where Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in power for 14 years, is facing political challenges from the opposition over his authoritarian style.
Orbán was the only EU leader to attend a conference in Beijing on the BRI, which has been criticized for burying participating countries in debt and failing to deliver on promised investments, something that prompted Italy to drop out last year. The two countries have a long history of friendship, particularly since 1999, when Nato bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese nationals, during the air war to end Serbia’s brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.