French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the Chinese authorities' "commitment" to "refrain from selling any weapons" and "any assistance to Moscow," the president said at a joint press conference in Paris with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday.
Source. This was reported by Le Figaro.
"We respect the long-standing ties between China and Russia," the French president said, "and given this complex history, we welcome the commitment of the Chinese authorities to refrain from selling any weapons or assistance to Moscow and to strictly control the export of dual-use goods" that could be used for military purposes.
Speaking about "the aggressive war that Russia is waging against Ukraine," Emmanuel Macron said he wants to "maintain a close dialogue" with China, and Paris intends to use Xi Jinping's visit to make sure that Beijing does not explicitly support Russian military actions.
"I would like to thank you for this moment of coordination that you wanted before Vladimir Putin's visit to China, which will also allow us to have a common agenda and to determine whether we want to move towards this lasting peace," the French president also said.
Background. As reported, Macron and Ursula von der Leyen urged Xi Jinping to put pressure on Putin to end the war.
Xi Jinping's current visit to Europe will be his first in 5 years. After France, the Chinese president intends to visit Serbia and Hungary, which are considered friendly countries to both China and Russia. It is also noted that at the end of this trip, Xi Jinping will meet with Russian dictator Putin, who is due to visit China soon.