hello and welcome. the french president emmanuel macron and the president of the european commission, ursula von der leyen, are in beijing, where they re holding talks with the chinese leadership. the trip is the latest push by europe to engage with china, and they re expected to urge china to use its influence on russia to halt the war in ukraine. after meeting with china s premier li qiang preident macron has met president xi xingping in the last half hour. in his first comments, mr macron said the visit would focus on economic ties as well as international stability. joining me from the newsroom is our asia pacific editor, michael bristow. thank you for being with us. tell us how significant this meeting is. it is very significant, you have seen the pomp and ceremony of the welcome xijinping has given emmanuel macron and it starts on a note of something like optimism. president macron said his meetings with the chinese premier, president macron said this was a chance f
moment. he sits down for roundtable discussions with president macron of france. and also the head of the european commission ursula von der leyen. earlier president macron and bush about the underlying met de president of thai mine. trying to move the issue forward, especially on economic and trade matters, pushing china to do what it can regarding the situation in ukraine. mr macron is also discussing the ukraine conflict whilst in china. our correspondent hugo bachega is kyiv. he says ukraine still doesn t view beijing as a possible peacemaker in the conflict. well, i don t think there s any
expectation here that china could emerge as a trusted mediator in this conflict. remember that weeks ago, president xi was in moscow shaking hands with president putin. they were talking about the no limits partnership between the two countries. russia. china has not condemned russia s invasion of ukraine, has not criticised president putin for his actions here. and he has actually put forward a peace proposal that has been dismissed by the ukrainians, by western countries, as being a plan that favours russia, in other words, consolidates russia s gains in this country. so. and on the other hand, there has been no dialogue between president zelensky and president xi since the beginning of this conflict. so i don t think there is any expectation, any kind of meaningful results could emerge after this trip by the french president. but i think he s trying perhaps to persuade china to put pressure