Франция между США и КНР в Индо-Тихоокеанском регионе: трудности "третьего пути"

Актуальные проблемы Европы. 2024. № 4. С. 183–198.

Chikhachev A.

This article examines France's foreign policy towards the Indo-Pacific region (IPR). It is noted that the main strategy of the French leadership in the IPR is an attempt to balance between the USA and China, while developing its own project, called the «third way». Paris began to show increased attention to the development of this strategy after the «submarine crisis» of 2021, when Australia curtailed cooperation with France in favor of the newly formed AUKUS bloc. The article analyzes the essence and implications of the «third way», as well as its prospects. It is shown that the alternative advocated by Paris is still difficult to navigate not only with regard to long-term goals, but also with a number of applied issues, while President Macron accompanies his program statements with mutually exclusive remarks. Various examples of the growing involvement of French diplomacy in the situation in the IPR are considered, including recent official visits, bilateral documents, defense agreements. Several groups of France's priority partners in the region are identified: 1) regional powers which were important for Paris even before 2021 (India, Japan); 2) countries whose relevance for France has recently grown (some ASEAN members - Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam); 3) states of Oceania, whose sovereignty Paris proposes to «protect» from Chinese influence (Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea). The article concludes that French activity in the region remains uneven and lacks sufficient conceptual and resource basis to be considered a full-fledged alternative to the policies of the United States and China. It is suggested that France is using the rhetoric of the «third way» to reinforce its status in the international arena and maintain at least partial freedom of action in the face of its increasingly limited international influence.

Keywords: США, Франция, USA, France, China, КНР, ASEAN, АСЕАН, военно-техническое сотрудничество, Индо-Тихоокеанский регион, defense cooperation, Эммануэль Макрон, Indo-Pacific, AUKUS, Emmanuel Macron, "Third way", "Третий путь", AUKUS