This interiew appears in the January 19, 2018 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
French President Emmanuel Macron, calling on the legacy of President De Gaulle's bold move to challenge the Malthusian, British empire cold war geopolitical lunacy, brought a diplomatic and business mission to China, January 8-10. DeGaulle, in 1964, had shocked the lunacy of that nuclear-unhinged post-JFK world, by officially recognizing the People's Republic of China and most importantly by speaking to the universal values of humanity, reflected in universal history, saying, “It is not to be excluded that China will once again, during the next century, become what it was throughout the centuries, the greatest power of the Universe.”
Macron began his trip on the morning of Jan. 8 with a visit to the Silk Road gateway of Xi’an. We present his speech here. That speech was followed in the afternoon by a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and a state dinner. Macron discussed his China trip with President Donald Trump, before his departure and upon his return, according to official reports from the White House and the Elysée, the French presidential headquarters.
JACQUES CHEMINADE INTERVIEW
France’s Macron Joins ‘Common Fight’
with China, for Peace and
Mutual Development of Mankind
[Print version of this interview]
The following is an edited transcript, translated from the original French, of the interview with Jacques Cheminade on RT France, on the morning of Jan. 9, 2018. The full video interview, titled, “Multilateral Cooperation or Wall Street: Macron has to choose, according to Jacques Cheminade,” is available at https://youtu.be/sGP1EF4kHGY
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All photos courtesy of RT France
Jacques Cheminade, on left, during interview presented here by RT France. President of France Emmanuel Macron, on right, speaking in Xi’an, China, Jan. 8.
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RT: This morning, we welcome Jacques Cheminade, founder of the Solidarité et Progrès Party. Good morning, Mr. Cheminade.
Cheminade: Good morning.
RT: Thank you for having accepted our invitation. First, about Emmanuel Macron’s gift of a horse to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, what do you make of it? What are your thoughts on this “horse diplomacy”?
Cheminade: This is very interesting. They say in Chinese that a name is an arrangement of things; that Emmanuel Macron’s name is related to “the horse which accompanies the dragon.”
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Shown at right, French President Macron is greeted upon arrival by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
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RT: “. . .which tames the dragon.”
Cheminade: Yes, they say “which tames the dragon.” But Macron has been a bit more of a charmer. In his Xi’an speech he referred to the panda given to him by China, whose name, Yuang Meng, means the “accomplishment of a dream” and concluded, “We are living at a time when China and France can afford to dream together.” So, this is where we start from; we start from his visit which begins in Xi’an, which is the door to the Silk Road, and also Xi’an is the region where President Xi Jinping comes from.
RT: Don’t you think that Macron is encroaching on your turf? He goes to China and he defends this great project of yours, the New Silk Road, which you had espoused during the 2017 French presidential elections.
Cheminade: In 1994-95, I championed the conception of a New Silk Road, which would permit the creation of a stable system of cooperation and mutual development in the world. And with that, we then could move to a still greater project, to go further than that, to create a Worldwide Land-Bridge, to secure peace.
RT: So you are going further with the idea. Emmanuel Macron mentioned that great project with Xi Jinping and strongly put Europe up front, with the idea of a Brussels-Beijing axis, presenting himself as the leader of Europe in China, as the promoter of the new Silk Road project. How do you see your role in this development, Mr. Cheminade?
Cheminade: I think that what French President Macron said is very important: “We are the memory of the world and it is our responsibility to decide if we are going to be its future.” This is how he ended his presentation in Xi’an. This is very important. He said that the Silk Road—actually there are seven New Silk Roads, they are corridors which generate development. They are not merely axes of transportation; this is a civilizational undertaking. Today, I am tempted to quote the poem by Aragon:
When wheat is under hail
Fool is he who is frets like a delicate flower.
Fools are they who think of their quarrels
In the midst of a common fight. . .
And, for me, this common fight comes down to two things. First is the need to restore peace in the world by way of mutual development. The New Silk Roads belong to this world-view, which is the perspective of this win-win system that Xi Jinping is talking about. Second is the fight against this greedy and predatory financial system of the City of London and Wall Street. Obviously, Emmanuel Macron will have to make a choice: either he goes entirely in the direction of what he defined in China, or he lays out the red carpet for London and Wall Street. He cannot have both at the same time. He has to make a choice.
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Xinhua/Wang Ye
President of China Xi Jinping
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RT: This New Silk Road project, is it a bilateral relationship here? There is mention of Russia from Macron. You have spoken about Russia as being part of that development.
Cheminade: Yes, Russia is a part. Macron went to Moscow on Dec. 19, and he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. He said that he totally opposed what the American Congress had decided, adopting an extra-territorial judicial approach of imposing sanctions. The world is now turning toward the East and it is necessary for France to play a role, not by excluding the United States, but to have a vision which goes toward mutual development. He spoke about a Paris-Moscow-Beijing commercial axis. Emmanuel Macron did not mention it on the China trip; it was probably not the right moment, but he nevertheless said clearly that it was absolutely necessary that there be a policy of cooperation extending beyond France and China, and that France and China could set the example, beyond their respective borders in the world. This is also what Xi Jinping has said, on several occasions, saying, “We don’t want to impose our system on others, and we don’t want others to impose their system on us.” And their system, the Chinese system of today, is socialism with Chinese characteristics.
RT: At the same time, Emmanuel Macron issued a warning against some sort of hegemony. What sort of “hegemony” is he talking about?
Cheminade: He did not precisely say that. He said that all along the Silk Road, people should not take the opportunity to create new forms of subjugation. He said it because that’s what he meant. But I don’t think it is in the Chinese vision, today. Yes, in the Silk Road, there is a desire to establish China as a great universal power, but as General de Gaulle spoke about in 1964—when he recognized the People’s Republic of China. However, the Chinese do have a sense that their own interest is also the interest of others, which is the basis of the idea of a win-win system. And Emmanuel Macron showed that he had an understanding of this when he said that the New Silk Roads were reactivating the power of imagination of civilization for the future, and this future is for the whole world to share. And I believe that all of this pertains to what Charles De Gaulle had called “détente, entente and cooperation.” It remains to be defined and it won’t be easy, but Macron said that we have to progress together, even if we are “in the dark and moving forward warily.” I really like that expression.
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 President Macron and First Lady visit the Forbidden City, Jan. 9, 2018.
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RT: So, one last question. What should we pay attention to from Emmanuel Macron’s trip to China? His visit is not over yet, and there are a lot of contracts at stake in the offing. What about the reinforcement of the economic partnership with Beijing?
Cheminade: Pay attention to the nuclear agreements, the digital and artificial intelligence domain, and cooperation in food and agriculture, in addition to the policy on aging and employment, China’s version of the Résidence pour Personnes Agées (RPA), which is an excellent institution for retirement homes, plus the fight to restore an environment which would favor progress and the improvement of life in urban centers.
So, there is all of that, but at the same time, there is Civilization. We have to understand that China, notably under the Song Dynasty of the North, a long time ago, had the largest capital city in the world, Kaifeng, with one million people. So, we have to understand all of that history. That history is part of this concept of Civilization. We have to understand, at the same time that we have also to, as Emmanuel Macron would say, go toward what Russia represents, between China and Europe. We already know what Leibniz did in the 17th Century.
Today, all of this is being concretized by the fact that Emmanuel Macron will be the guest of honor at the Saint Petersburg Forum in May. Therefore, what we are looking at is a change of manifold, and I think that the Russian authorities, and particularly President Putin, are beginning to understand—which was not necessarily the case during the French elections—that there is in France a strong Gaullist presence, a patriotic orientation, which transcends parties.
I think that this is what transpired during Macron’s trip to China, there’s that. And I, like France, would hope to be a catalyst in the world, a very small thing which assures that a chemical reaction works; that is, peace in the world, development, or peace through development. What I wish to be is a catalytic means of a very small thing, which in France would reorient politics toward that process of change which Emmanuel Macron has opened in China, but in which he did not go far enough. Therefore, one more time: One cannot be at the same time a partner in this policy of multilateral cooperation on the one side, and serve the financial system of the City of London and of Wall Street on the other.
RT: Thank you very much, Jacques Cheminade, President of the Solidarité et Progrès Party, and former presidential candidate in the last French presidential elections. Thank you for this visit.
Cheminade: Thank you.
