China, France pledge cooperation as Xi joins Macron in trip to Chengdu 

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have pledged deeper cooperation on global issues, as the two leaders met ahead of France’s hosting of the Group of Seven (G7) summit next year.

Xi hosted Macron on Friday in the southwestern city of Chengdu, state media said, in a rare instance of the head of the world’s second-largest economy accompanying a guest beyond the capital, Beijing.

As Macron wrapped up his three-day visit to China, he and his wife, Brigitte, met the Chinese presidential couple for lunch in a more relaxed setting compared with the previous day.

Macron began his day in Chengdu on Friday by surprising fellow joggers in the city’s Jincheng Lake Park, videos circulating on Chinese social media showed, before joining Xi at the Dujiangyan dam, state media reported. The dam has managed water flows around Chengdu since the 3rd century BC.

Macron said he was “very touched” by Xi’s gesture, a departure from official protocol, after he hosted Xi in the Pyrenees in May 2024, a place where Macron spent time as a child.

These are all signs of mutual trust and a desire to “act together” at a time when international tensions are rising and trade imbalances are widening to China’s advantage, he said.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Andy Mok of Beijing’s Center for China and Globalization, said that the visit highlights the importance of promoting “trade cooperation” between France and China, but also between greater Europe and China.

On Thursday, the two leaders had met at the more solemn Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where tough discussions on ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine and international trade took place.

Macron has been seeking to involve Beijing in pressuring Russia towards a ceasefire with Ukraine after a recent burst of diplomacy around a United States-led peace plan.

“We are facing the risk of the disintegration of the international order that brought peace to the world for decades, and in this context, the dialogue between China and France is even more essential than ever,” Macron said on Thursday.

“I hope that China will join our call, our efforts to achieve, as soon as possible, at the very least a ceasefire in the form of a moratorium on strikes targeting critical infrastructure,” he said.

Xi did not respond to France’s call, but said that “China supports all efforts that work towards peace” and called for a peace deal that all parties will accept.

China has provided strong diplomatic support to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, and has also extended an economic lifeline through increased trade.

A meeting between Xi and Macron in Beijing on Thursday produced 12 cooperation agreements covering topics like population ageing, nuclear energy and panda conservation.

No monetary amounts were disclosed, though Macron is being accompanied for his fourth state visit to China by the heads of some of France’s most prominent companies.

On Friday, the two nations signed an agreement on the sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for exports of French alfalfa to China, state broadcaster CCTV said. The two countries also made “important progress” in registering French pig white viscera exporters for trade with China, CCTV added.

Meanwhile, in Chengdu, China’s fourth-largest city with 21 million inhabitants and considered one of the most culturally and socially open in China, Macron will meet with students.

Brigitte Macron, for her part, will visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where two 17-year-old pandas, loaned to France in 2012 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy”, have just returned.

There, she will meet Yuan Meng, the first giant panda born in France in 2017, to whom she is “Godmother”, and who arrived in China in 2023.