French President Emmanuel Macron said China could play an “important role” in the war in Ukraine because of its close ties with Russia, Reuters and The Guardian reported.

Macron, speaking shortly after landing in Beijing on a three-day state visit, said maintaining a dialogue with China was important and that Moscow could not be allowed to have an exclusive dialogue with Beijing.

“We are hearing increasingly loud voices expressing strong concern about the future of relations between the West and China, which in one form or another leads to the conclusion of an inevitable spiral of rising tensions,” Macron said.

The French leader, ahead of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is making his first trip to China since 2019 and hopes to negate any sense of an “inevitable spiral” of tensions between Beijing and the West.

Both Macron and von der Leyen have said they want to persuade China to use its influence with Russia to bring peace to Ukraine, or at least prevent Beijing from directly supporting Moscow.

Anyone who supports the “aggressor” Russia in the conflict in Ukraine is an “accomplice,” Macron warned in Beijing.

“From the beginning of the conflict, we decided to help the victim, and we also made it clear that anyone who helps the aggressor will be an accomplice, thus violating international law,” the French president said.

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