If you study all these recent visits to China, the one who - by far - got the highest level access was Macron: President Xi personally accompanied him for a tourist visit to Sichuan, something which almost never happens and is an immense mark of respect.

For instance, Xi (or any Chinese leader) never accompanied an American president on a tourist visit outside Beijing.

YET he is also the one who - by far - achieved the least. According to French and Chinese media, no deal of any significance were signed.

Literally, as far as I can see, the only deal that was announced with a financial figure was a trivially small €25 million deal by Air Liquide to electrify an air separation unit in Shaanxi province (usinenouvelle.com/eco-s…). That's it. Everything else was framework agreements, partnership renewals, MoUs, and letters of intent.

And this is despite Macron travelling with a huge entourage of 40 CEOs from France's largest companies.

Also, the first thing Macron did when we came back to France was to threaten China to emulate Trump by applying tariffs on Chinese goods (intellinews.com/macron-…): "In the coming months we Europeans will be obliged to take strong measures and decouple, like the US, like for example tariffs on Chinese products."

Funnily, he was almost immediately repudiated by other Europeans. The very next day, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who was himself visiting Beijing, publicly pushed back: "Germany does not pursue a policy of protectionism as a matter of principle" (realnewsmagazine.net/ge…).

As I wrote at the time (intellinews.com/macron-…), Macron did things completely backwards: when you want to do a deal, you put your cards on the table before the negotiation, not after it's over. Macron accepted Xi's unprecedented personal hospitality, negotiated nothing of substance, flew home, and then was like: "these damn Chinese better give me what I want". Uh... it's over Emmanuel, the negotiations were yesterday...

That's not diplomacy, that's burning goodwill for nothing.

Contrast all this with Keir Starmer, for instance. He got mocked a lot for the little access he got in China: when visiting the Forbidden City, he was all alone, only accompanies by a tourist guide and the place wasn't closed off or restricted to other visitors. There was really something comical about seeing the British Prime Minister wandering through the Forbidden City like a regular British tourist on a package holiday.

YET, for all the mockery, he actually left China with billions in deals:

- Chery, the Chinese automaker, announced it would establish its European headquarters in Liverpool (x.com/LiverpoolLabour/s…), one the most significant projects for the city’s manufacturing sector in recent years

- AstraZeneca, the pharma giant, struck a $18.5 billion deal to license a weight-loss drug from China (reuters.com/business/he…) and committed to a $15 billion investment in China through 2030 to expand medicines manufacturing and R&D (astrazeneca.com/media-c…)

- He got tariffs on British whiskey halved (itv.com/news/2026-01-31…)

- PopMart, the makers of the viral Labubu dolls, announced they'd picked London as their European HQ (reuters.com/world/uk/ch…) and would open seven more UK stores

All in all, it doesn't please me to say this, but it goes to illustrate once more how woefully incompetent Macron's diplomacy is.

France, due to its history and De Gaulle's legacy, has an immense advantage over other Western countries when it comes to China. And yet he's being outperformed by the least charismatic British PM in living memory (and that's saying something after people like Theresa May or Rishi Sunak), a guy so unremarkable that the highest-ranking Chinese official willing to accompany him to the Forbidden City was a local tourist guide.

It takes real talent to lose to that when your own tourist guide was, literally, Xi Jinping.