Macron warns US and the Indo-Pacific not to abandon Ukraine at the expense of focusing on China

SINGAPORE — French President Emmanuel Macron warned the United States and a large audience of Indo-Pacific nations on Friday night that they risk a dangerous double standard as they concentrate on a potential conflict with China, if that shift comes at the cost of abandoning Ukraine.

Macron's made the remarks as the U.S. is considering withdrawing troops from Europe to shift them to the Indo-Pacific. He warned that abandoning Ukraine would eventually erode U.S. credibility in deterring any potential conflict with China over Taiwan.

In a speech that emphasized France's tight ties to the Indo-Pacific, Macron said that any shifts to developing a more hard-line deterrent stance in the region is still tied to how the world — and particularly the West — treats other critical issues, including climate change and Israel's ongoing military operations in Gaza.

''If you consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order, how would you phrase what would happen in Taiwan, what would you do the day something happened in" the Philippines? he asked in a speech delivered in English.

Hegseth in the audience

The speech was notable in that Macron delivered it with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the audience and as not only France, but countries around the globe are dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump's fluctuating tariff threats. Both Europe and those same Indo-Pacific nations also find themselves increasingly pulled between the competing interests of Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

''We want to cooperate. But we don't want to be instructed on a daily basis what is allowed, what is not allowed and how our life will change because of the decision of a single person," Macron said, in an apparent jab at Trump.

Macron and Hegseth are among the world leaders, diplomats and top defense officials in Singapore this weekend for the region's biggest security forum that comes amid concerns of China's growing assertiveness, the global impact of the Russia-Ukraine war and the flare-up of conflicts in Asia.

It's Hegseth's first time at the Shangri-La Dialogue, hosted by the International Institute for Security Studies, which is taking place against the backdrop of heightened rhetoric between Beijing and Washington. The Trump administration has threatened China with triple-digit tariffs, and there's some uncertainty in the region over how committed the U.S. is to the defense of Taiwan, which also faces possible 32% American tariffs.

China claims the self-governing democracy as its own, and Xi hasn't ruled out taking it by force. China sends military aircraft, ships and spy balloons near Taiwan as part of a campaign of daily harassment, and currently has an aircraft carrier in the waters southeast of the island.

China sends lower-level delegation

China, which usually sends its defense minister to the Shangri-La forum, sent a much lower-level delegation instead, led by Maj. Gen. Hu Gangfeng, the vice president of the People's Liberation Army National Defense University. The delegation was expected to speak Saturday on a panel on ''cooperative maritime security'' alongside representatives from Japan, Vietnam, Chile and the U.K. — notable in that China's aggressive global fisheries tactics have been a regular topic of concern not only in the Indo-Pacific but as far away as Latin America and the Arctic.

Defense officials traveling with Hegseth, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, called the absence of a higher-level Chinese delegation an opportunity for the U.S. to make inroads.

''We can't account for whether China engages or not. All we know is that we're here. And we will be here,'' Hegseth said as he met with Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro.

Allies worried about US commitment to their defense

Hegseth's trip to Singapore is his second to the region since becoming defense secretary, following a March visit to the Philippines, which has seen escalating confrontations with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.

That trip, which also included a stop in Japan, brought a degree of relief over growing concerns from the Philippines and others in the region about U.S. support from a president who has taken more of a transactional approach to diplomacy and seems wary of foreign engagements.

The U.S. has been pursuing a ''free and open Indo-Pacific'' policy, which includes regularly sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, which is claimed almost in its entirety by China.

The European Union has adopted a more economics-driven approach, but several European nations have also regularly taken part in the freedom of navigation exercises, including France, which sent a carrier strike group on a five-month mission through the Indo-Pacific that concluded in April.

France steps up its presence in Indo-Pacific

In its published Indo-Pacific strategy, France has underscored the need to ''preserve a rules-based international order'' in the face of ''China's increasing power and territorial claims'' and its global competition with the United States.

France's own ties to the Indo-Pacific are strong, with more than 1.6 million of its citizens living in the region in French overseas territories.

Following a meeting Friday with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Macron told reporters there was room in the region for more than just the two superpowers.

''We are neither China nor the U.S., we don't want to depend on any of them," he said. ''We want to cooperate with both as far as we can, and we can cooperate for growth and prosperity and stability for our people and the world order, and I think this is exactly the same view of a lot of countries and a lot of people of this region.''

Wong underscored Macron's point, saying that Singapore and the greater region weren't looking for exclusive arrangements with any single power.

"We want to embrace comprehensive engagement with all parties and embrace win-win arrangements rather than zero-sum competition,'' he said.

In his speech later, he said it was wrong to think of the war in Ukraine as simply a European war, and chided China for its support of Russia and for not doing anything to prevent North Korea from sending weapons and troops to aid Russia's fight.

NATO's role

Macron said that he had always been against NATO taking a role in Asia — something China routinely accuses the U.S. of trying to engineer - but suggested that the presence of North Korean soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine might cause him to reconsider.

''If China doesn't want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or Asia, they should prevent, clearly, DPRK to be engaged on the European soil,'' he said, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

The conference comes as civil war continues to rage in Myanmar, creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has only been compounded by the effects of a devastating earthquake that hit in March.

It also follows the outbreak of violence this week on the Thai-Cambodian border, in which a Cambodian soldier was killed in a brief exchange of fire between the two sides. Thailand and Cambodia have a long history of land disputes, though Thailand said after the short skirmish that the situation had been resolved.

Of greater concern, nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan came to the brink of war earlier this month in their most serious military confrontation in decades. The two armies exchanged gunfire, artillery strikes, missiles and drones that killed dozens of people, and Pakistan shot down several Indian planes before a truce was declared.

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Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report from Paris.