Video Transcript

• Xi Jinping Wraps Up Visits to France, Hungary, and Serbia: What Did He Accomplish?

  This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

  Xi Jinping probably regards his trip to Europe as a success. He went to France, where he met with Emmanuel Macron and also to Hungary and Serbia, two countries that are very friendly to China in defiance of trends throughout Europe. Xi Jinping believes that Macron's call for strategic autonomy for Europe work to his advantage and against the United States. 

  I think that is a fundamental misread. 

  He doesn't understand that Macron is actually calling for Europe to be the champion of liberal democracy. He met with Macron. And Macron was very concerned, as are other European leaders, about China's support for Russia. Xi Jinping's position is one, denying, that he does support Russia. He claims neutrality, all the while doubling down on friendship with Russia. Indeed, Vladimir Putin will be visiting China very soon. So I think that Europe got no encouragement there. 

  And Macron's other major concern is China's export of its overcapacity. It's flooding European markets with electronic vehicles, solar cells. And here again, no concessions on either side. Xi Jinping denies that China is overproducing, denies that it is flooding foreign markets, and claims that this is all a fabrication of the United States. China had been trying to split the European countries that had formerly been part of the Soviet Union from Western Europe through a program that it called the 17 plus 1. 17, were the 17 Central and Eastern European states, plus Greece. The one was China.