The Art of War

French President Macron spoke at the Sorbonne for two full hours. In his second speech on Europe in that pantheon of French intellectual thought, he uttered what causes uneasiness and forces one into cognitive dissonance.

“Europe is mortal. He can die. Everything depends on the choices that we as a continent have to make, and they should be made now."

Macron spoke about the economic and military lagging behind global rivals, the danger of weakening and splitting the Union, emphasizing the obvious - the era in which the EU bought energy from Russia, sent its production to China and asked the United States for its security is over. "The hostility of Russia, the disinterest of the USA and the competition of China create the risk that the EU will remain marginalized and suppressed." Macron calls for the strengthening of European defense as the only possibility of achieving strategic autonomy.

Today's war and the global geopolitical situation are extremely complex, and all global rivals, whether or not they are allies or strategic collaborators, play a major role in it.

The favorite book on the shelves of Croatian bookstores is the one by the Chinese military leader Sun Tzu, written more than two millennia ago. Like the prophecies of the Greek Pythias, Sun's book, written as a military manual with instructions, can be interpreted in all spheres and any organization of conflict, from personal, family, business. Commentators say this book is considered one of the most influential manuals on strategy and conflict. "Take care of the great while there is still little," Sun Tsu used to say.

What kind of conflict are we living today? Great and worldly. With the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the doctrine drawn up by the Kremlin, it is clear that the central country of Eurasia has decided that the world carved out after the Second World War, with universal human rights at the center and an order based on the rule of law, must be destroyed or changed according to the principles that, as said Putin in a programmatic speech after the annexation of four Ukrainian eastern regions in the fall of 2022, against the "rotten" West. A vision of a world that has not yet been created, and the old one has not yet fallen apart. In this art of warfare in the century that came after a century of humiliation for China, we have a lot of parallel elements mixing in a globalized world that is being adjusted. Economy, technology, climate change, demography, military power, the list is long and complex. In this world that challenges the West, liberalism, the global market economy, which pushes the geopolitical tectonic plates in hitherto unknown directions, Chinese civilization or strategic culture as some call it, stands in the windstorm behind the Himalayas, far from us, with so much influence on all global relations . In just a few lines during my stays in that country, I could feel that complete difference from everything I know and understand, from the language and writing, to the fact that words such as "taxi" and "hotel" are not understood in that country, to that that the world map that the Chinese look at and learn in schools looks like the Pacific is in the center, China itself and East Asia on the left, and the two Americas on the right. Europe is skewed somewhere on the left edge. Sitting in the Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, twelve years ago, at the party congress during which Xi Jinping was confirmed as the leader of the country and the party, neither I nor anyone in the world could have guessed that the new leader would soon position himself as one in modern history the most important. Oriental interpretations of China used to state how China thinks in centuries, not in years, but whether it is true or not, the Chinese way, so different from all the others we know, has shown itself in full light in the last decade.

Our invincibility depends on us, the enemy's vulnerability depends on him, says Sun Tzu's manual. On the road to invincibility, Xi Jinping started the fight against corruption in the party, reforming institutions under the slogan "socialist rule of law", hand in hand with internal reforms he created a cult of personality, then changed the legislation and made himself president for life. Then, with the Made in China 2025 economic policy, he outlined an economic plan for Chinese self-sufficiency and domestic production of all strategically key technologies, from semiconductors to lithium batteries. National security and foreign policy went hand in hand. From cyber security and mass surveillance of citizens in the country, to what has been called "wolf warrior diplomacy" within China's call for multilateralism. Economic expansion and protectionism went hand in hand with the strengthening of the military and constant tension in the Pacific region.

Then came covid. "The Chinese virus," said Donald Trump. A great trauma for the world and Chinese society.

Xi Jinping is now arriving in Europe for the first time since the pandemic, a month before the European elections. It will be on the continent on the days when Europe celebrates the anniversary of the defeat of Nazism and fascism, the end of the Second World War and when we celebrate Europe Day. It arrives in Europe, which, before it dies, to paraphrase Macron, rearranges and rearranges itself, finding ways of its strategic autonomy. Although they are major trade and partners in the areas of technology and agriculture, where there is interdependence, as the pandemic has shown, a large and strategic, value redistribution of the world, pushed the EU to introduce legislation rigorously against Chinese technology companies, even before the USA, which in the geopolitical the age represents both a tool and a weapon, how one interprets reality and perspective. The trade war, the issue of Chinese subsidies that destroy competitiveness, escalated last week with the intrusion of European prosecutors into the Dutch and Polish offices of the Chinese company Nuctech, owned by the son of former Chinese President Hu Jintao. But the question of the relationship between China and the EU in the time ahead, in the dimensions we knew - from separation to reduced risks, from seeing Beijing as a strategic partner, to a rival and even an enemy, still has many components that are important for Europe. Chinese foreign policy, Zelensky's open hand towards possible peace negotiations, the current mediation between the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, last year's warming of relations between Riyadh and Tehran and the balancing of interests in Africa, according to Russian assertiveness in the Sahel area, which has also militarily inserted itself into a strategically important area for China's One Belt One Road policy are points that are important for European strategic autonomy. Could Macron, who is already facing defeat from the right in the European elections, be the key link of the European negotiating anchor, if it wasn't the German chancellor who just returned from Beijing as if he hadn't even been there, with an election year in America as well. China builds its policy where it can, in an initiative with sixteen Eastern European countries, in this context the two most active ones remain. It is in them, whose capitals he wants to connect with a high-speed railway, Hungary and Serbia, that Xi is visiting in his first post-covid tour along with France.

If Europe is gambling on its future strategic autonomy, it has a swelling Chinese cushion at its heart. The two frogs that swim well in it and jump from water lily to water lily are Orban and Vučić. One at the head of a member state of the European Union and NATO, the other at the head of a country with an identity dilemma, a country whose authoritarian leader Xi, in an interview with Chinese national television ahead of the visit, was praised as the one who solves all strategic problems in Serbia.

Xi's visit to Europe in precisely this window of history must be watched carefully. Europe has gone from naïve optimism towards China to a framework in which Xi's country is seen as a multiple threat. Xi's considerable age and position as the eternal ruler puts him on one side alongside Putin, with no possible successor on the horizon and no possible scenario that would transform the country in some time after the 2024-year-old's departure. In these geopolitical circumstances, can China continue to be part of the solution or part of new problems in the transatlantic combinatorics with clear American goals and interests, regardless of who and how occupies the White House by the end of XNUMX?

"Pretend to be weak when you are strong and strong when you are weakest," writes Sun Tsu. Europe can play dead or say it will die, but the art of warfare for the 22nd century for an aging continent that lacks competitive technology will have to look different. How, we will be able to glimpse already after the European elections in June, and with whom and what kind of strategic rivals, we will be able to observe in the week ahead as the Chinese convoy moves from Paris, via Budapest to Belgrade.

(n1info.hr)