It's symbolism. But it's important symbolism. Far more notable, I think, is Macron saying this morning that Europe needs more investment from China. Canada signing a deal with China to allow their cars to be sold in the country. It's all a sliding slope until it reaches a breaking point and falls off like a cliff. EDIT: to quote the Canadian PN earlier today: “American hegemony in particular helped provide public goo…
That sounds like a rhetoric for better negotiating power against Trump. Chinese are our adversaries (EDIT: enemies, they actually bankroll Russian invasion and supply weapons) and I hope president of France understands that.
Whereas I remember multiple times our allies pillaging and colonizing the country.
Not a fan of their espionage, lack of IP respect and human rights record (albeit we should also look at ourselves on the last one as well). But those are things that could've been challenged diplomatically through economical levers imho.
The only reason China suddenly became the enemy is because their GDP growth put them as the world's biggest economy in few decades and Washington wasn't happy with this.