President Emmanuel Macron of France arrives in Beijing Wednesday determined to carve out a distinct role for Europe that avoids America’s confrontation with an assertive China, and convinced that there is a place for Chinese mediation in ending the war in Ukraine.
Battered at home by protests over his decision to raise the French retirement age and rebuffed in his repeated attempts to sway President Vladimir Putin of Russia from pursuing a long war, Macron has turned to China as “the sole country in the world capable of changing Moscow’s calculus” on Ukraine, in the words of one diplomatic official.
