French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned the US and Europe risked losing their credibility if they do not resolve the wars in Ukraine and Gaza soon.
Delivering the keynote address at the 22nd Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual high-level Asia defence summit held in Singapore, Macron appealed to Asian countries to build a new alliance with Europe to ensure they do not become “collateral damage” in the struggle for power between the US and China.
Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, were among the guests—comprising of top military officials in the region—present.
Macron pointed out that if Russia could take Ukrainian territory “without any restrictions, without any constraints… what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something happens in the Philippines?”
“What is at stake in Ukraine is our common credibility, that we are still able to preserve territorial integrity and sovereignty of people,” he said. “No double standards.”
Fears of instability in the far-east and southeast Asian region stem from China—should China attempt to forcibly “reunify” with Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory, and China has also increasingly clashed with the Philippines over competing claims in the South China Sea.
He stressed the importance of working towards a ceasefire and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state, saying: “If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world.”
In recent weeks, European leaders have criticised Israel’s attacks for exacerbating the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. Next month, France will co-host with Saudi Arabia a conference at the UN aimed at laying out a roadmap for a two-state solution.
Macron has been fiercely criticised by Israel, with the foreign ministry on Friday saying, “Instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state.”
Furthermore, he used his speech on Friday to sell his vision of “strategic autonomy” and to “build a new coalition for open trade, open dialogue to de-risk our models, stable environment, and new coalitions to stabilise open and rule-based order.”
The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue is a meeting where ministers and diplomats are called upon to debate the region’s most pressing security challenges, engage in important bilateral talks and come up with fresh approaches together. The 22nd edition is slated to wrap up on June 1.