Xi Jinping, China’s leader, was met by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal at Orly airport outside Paris.Credit…Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, arrived in France yesterday on his first trip to Europe in five years. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will host a state dinner for him tonight. The E.U. Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, will join their talks in Paris.
Xi will also visit Serbia and Hungary. The three European nations are all, to varying degrees, embracing China’s push for a new global order — a world freed of American dominance, where Europe’s bonds with the U.S. are looser, though not untethered. Xi’s visit is likely to be seen as a none-too-subtle effort to divide Western allies.
What’s next: Xi’s arrival in Serbia tomorrow coincides with the 25th anniversary of NATO’s mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The Chinese government has continued to commemorate the strike, using it as an occasion to denounce what it sees as Western hypocrisy and bullying.
