XI’AN (China) • In a response to panda power, French President Emmanuel Macron bet on equine diplomacy during his first state visit to China, presenting his Chinese counterpart with a horse as a gift..
XI’AN (China) • In a response to panda power, French President Emmanuel Macron bet on equine diplomacy during his first state visit to China, presenting his Chinese counterpart with a horse as a gift.
The animal, a retired Republican Guard horse named Vesuve de Brekka, is in quarantine in China.
The French presidential office said Chinese President Xi Jinping had been fascinated by the Republican Guard when he was escorted during a visit to Paris in 2014, but the choice of gift became a talking point back home in France.
French historian Jean-Louis Gouraud said he found the choice puzzling and wondered if it might be misinterpreted.
Horse exchanges have long been a diplomatic tradition, but they were offered in the past to all-powerful Chinese emperors as a sign of deference by visitors, and the move could be seen as showing Mr Macron in a position of weakness.
However, the gift was a gelding – a castrated male – rather than a fertile stallion.
