PARIS, April 8 -- Angela Merkel will join Emmanuel Macron (right) and Jean-Claude Juncker for a meeting with Xi Jinping in Paris on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has invited Germany and the European Union to join a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping when he visits Paris next week. In the surprise move, Macron asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to take part in the meeting with Xi on Tuesday, apparently to step up pressure on China during the European charm offensive. Xi is in Italy on the first stop of a six-day trip to Europe, to be followed by Monaco and France. Pressure from France and Germany has played a big role in shaping the EU’s new, more assertive, China policy that is being debated in Brussels, analysts say. During the meeting with Xi, Macron plans to explain Europe’s strategy towards China as the EU moves forward with new policies on Beijing, according to a statement from the French president’s office. The meeting with Xi would focus on trade and the environment, it said. Frans-Paul van der Putten, senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, said it was a coordinated approach.“It seems that France, Germany and the European Commission are jointly taking the lead in coordinating the EU’s China policy,” van der Putten said. “Should the European Commission, Germany and France continue their current path towards closer coordination of their China policies, then this could strengthen the overall position of the EU with regard to China,” he said. “But that is only possible if the rest of the EU member states believe that their interests are adequately reflected in the [EU’s] policies.”He said the Paris meeting was aimed at preparing for the upcoming EU-China summit in Brussels on April 9.François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at the Institut Montaigne in Paris, said Macron’s unexpected call for a multilateral meeting during a bilateral state visit was “unprecedented”. He said the move was in line with Macron’s commitment to EU integration and reform, and his support for new responses to China proposed by the European Commission. “The meeting is also an answer to China’s very stubborn bilateralism, and is meant to demonstrate a coordinated European stand,” he added. Godement said while France and Germany had recently made joint proposals on China at the EU level, there was always a risk that other countries did not agree with their position. “The other member states of course don’t like being put in a box,” he said.
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