An expert weighed in on the reason why Paris has not yet signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Beijing for the latter's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), suggesting that France may be waiting for the Chinese government to propose a multilateral deal with the European Union (EU) first.
Following Italy's recent MoU signing with China during President Xi Jinping's visit to the eurozone, some economic analysts expressed concerns about France's hesitance in becoming a partner of Beijing's Belt and Road project.
According to China Global Television News, Prof. Douglas Yates of the American Graduate School in Paris suggested that the French government may still be in the early stages of negotiating with its Chinese counterpart, thus the longer wait for an MoU signing.
Yates further explained that Paris' decision to negotiate first is a positive sign since it indicates that France has both goals and conditions that it wants to negotiate with China before a deal is signed into paper.
The economic and political expert further pointed out that France's concerns about the BRI deal may be because it "wants a multilateral signature and wants to do a deal between the EU and China." It is worth noting that Paris would be the second EU state to join China's BRI if the deal goes through.
Earlier this week, the French government signed 15 business contracts with Beijing, including a massive order of 300 Airbus planes. The deals also included a reported €1 billion contract that will see France's EDF establishing an offshore wind farm in the world's most populous nation.
For Prof. Wang Yiwei who is a Jean Monnet Chair at the Research Center for European Studies at the Renmin University of China, the deals are part of both the efforts from both countries to turn "competition into cooperation."
Ahead of Xi's meeting with French government officials, he wrote a letter published in the Le Figaro newspaper wherein he detailed the goals he wanted to achieve for his France visit. According to Bloomberg, Xi said China is open to French investors who want to "share the opportunities of development" in his country.
French President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, said on Friday that the EU should seek to improve relations with China as one, not as individual nations. He also noted that he wants France to have Chinese investments, but a Belt and Road Initiative deal has yet to be negotiated appropriately.
Despite some roadblocks in Beijing's goals of signing MoUs with most, if not all, EU states, economic experts pointed out that the latest developments in Xi's eurozone visit are the beginning of potential cooperation with other European nations in the near future.
It was further predicted that with Rome joining the Belt and Road Initiative, China had found an opening to the European circle where it can slowly build trust and promote bilateral benefits that the BRI has to offer.
