Macron of France wants Asian coalitions and fears of a split between the US and China

French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the need for Paris to form new alliances with allies in the Indo-Pacific region and stated on Friday that the world’s greatest threat at the moment is a split between the two superpowers, China and the United States.

Macron is traveling to the area as part of France’s and the EU’s efforts to improve trade relations in Asia in order to counteract concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s expansive global tariff policies.

“I will be clear, France is a friend and an ally of the United States, and is a friend, and we do cooperate – even if sometimes we disagree and compete – with China,” Macron said during a two-day state visit to Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest defenseforum.

“You must take a side. “If we do this, we will destroy the global order and systematically destroy all the institutions we established after World War II to maintain peace and collaborate on issues like human rights, health, and climate change,” Macron continued.

According to the president of France, Europe and Asia share a desire to keep the world order from collapsing.

“The time for non-alignment has undoubtedly passed, but the time for coalitions of action has come, and requires that countries capable of acting together give themselves every means to do so,” stated Macron.

In an indication of Southeast Asia’s strategic significance in the face of uncertainty surrounding global supply chains and commerce, Macron is joining leaders from China, Japan, and other European nations who have visited the region in recent weeks.

The leader of France also cautioned that the credibility of the United States and Europe in the Indo-Pacific area would suffer if they were unable to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“If the United States of America and the Europeans are unable to fix in the short term the Ukraine crisis, I think the credibility of the U.S. and Europe to fix any other crisis in this region will be very low,” according to him.

After eight years of fighting between Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Putin deployed tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Less than one-fifth of the nation is currently under Russian control. The conflict is costing Russia and Ukraine dearly in terms of military expenditures and lives, despite the fact that Russian progress has accelerated in the last year.

Macron also issued a warning about the dangers to Asia should a precedent be set by permitting Russia to occupy a portion of Ukraine without resistance.

“If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order….what could happen in Taiwan?”

China has increased political and military pressure to underline its claims over democratically controlled Taiwan, including intensifying war games, claiming the island is a province of China and has no right to be referred to as a state.