Double standards in war condemnation would ‘kill our own credibility’: Macron
French president calls on world leaders to be consistent and form a coalition with a rules-based order during keynote address at Singapore forum
French President Emmanuel Macron has warned of double standards in condemning conflicts, calling on world leaders to be consistent and form a coalition with a rules-based order in light of the ongoing wars around the world.
During his keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) on Friday night, Macron took swipes at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s hostilities in Gaza and China’s aggression in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, pointing out that the “big risk” was to forget the universal principles that connected all conflicts.
The French president is the first European leader to deliver the keynote speech at the dialogue, widely considered as Asia’s premier defence summit. The dialogue, now in its 22nd edition, is organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and has participants from 47 countries including ministers, chiefs of defence forces and prominent academics.
China did not send Defence Minister Dong Jun to the SLD, a departure from its practice in the past three years. Instead, a delegation from the National Defence University is in Singapore to attend the forum, which began on Friday and will last till Sunday.
On the war in Ukraine, Macron said: “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, how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan? What would you do the day something happened in the Philippines?”
He added that sticking to principles meant that what was true in Europe would be true elsewhere in the world. “So what is at stake in Ukraine is our common credibility to be sure that we are still able to preserve territorial integrity and sovereignty of people, no double standard.”
This extended to the war in Gaza, Macron said, arguing that if a free pass was given to Israel over its actions there, “we [would] kill our own credibility in the rest of the world” even if countries condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas.
“This is why I think it’s very important in our current environment to be consistent and to follow our principles, our rules, and to consider that what is at stake is clearly the global order, and what is at stake is our credibility to protect this global order,” he said.
Macron noted that the credibility of the US and Europe to “pretend to fix any crisis in this region will be very low” if they were unable to solve the Ukrainian situation.
“Because till now, all of us say what happened in Ukraine is a clear violation of international law, what happened in Ukraine is unacceptable … And we are ready to help to finance to provide capabilities, but we [have] now already sacrificed [the] very last Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
On whether he saw a military role for Europe in Asia despite the war in Ukraine, Macron said the European administration would never sell what it could not deliver.
Addressing what he called the “elephant in the room”, Macron said if China decided to take action against another country in the region, France would be very cautious to intervene, as all countries would.
He stressed that France’s role was not to be a substitute, but to ensure it had the capacity to protect its own soil and help Asian states to do the same for themselves and reduce dependency.
Despite this, Macron assured the dialogue audience that France was a friend of China, even if it sometimes disagreed and competed with the superpower.
Macron pointed out that Europe and Asia had common interests and challenges, such as in the form of “revisionist countries” that wanted to control areas from the fringes of Europe to the archipelagos in the South China Sea, to the exclusion of regional partners.
Such countries “want to impose on free countries their foreign policy choices or prejudice their alliances” and were oblivious to international law, he added.
To counter that, Macron urged for alliances of open trade and dialogue to stabilise a rules-based order that respected sovereignty and refused the use of force as a means of domination.
He called on Europe and Asia to work together on a “coalition of independence” that would respect sovereignty, navigate the rough seas of trade and climate issues and “affirm negative passions can be opposed and indeed superseded by universal values”.
Macron was on a two-day state visit to Singapore to commemorate 60 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations.
France and Singapore also signed agreements to cooperate on defence and security, legal, AI and transport, among others, as they upgraded bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership – the highest possible tier. It is the city state’s first such partnership with a European country.
On Thursday night he and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong visited Lau Pa Sat hawker centre for local food where the pair were swarmed by members of the public.
Earlier on Friday, he received a ceremonial welcome at Parliament House and called on President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who hosted Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron to a state banquet.
