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France's Macron calls for Europe-China alliance on climate, Silk Road

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XIAN, CHINA French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday urged Europe to take part in China's Silk Road revival plan, despite some European misgivings about the massive project, as he began a state visit.

Mr Macron also called on Europe and China to team up on curbing climate change, in the face of US plans to withdraw from the Paris accord.

"Our destinies are linked," he said in a keynote speech on the future of Sino-French relations during a visit to the northern city of Xian, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road.

"The future needs France, Europe and China," Mr Macron said, adding he would travel to China "at least once a year".

Mr Macron began his three-day visit in Xian as a gesture to Chinese President Xi Jinping's huge New Silk Road project, an initiative to connect Asia and Europe by road, rail and sea.

The US$1 trillion (S$1.3 trillion) infrastructure programme is billed as a modern revival of the ancient Silk Road that once carried fabrics, spices and a wealth of other goods in both directions.

Known in China as "One Belt, One Road", the plan will see new road and rail networks built through Central Asia and beyond, and new maritime routes stretching through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.

The project has elicited both interest and anxiety, with some in Europe seeing it as Chinese expansionism.- AFP

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