The trip the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will make to China next week carries a much more strategic character than it seems at first sight. It starts in the South, in the city of Shenzhen which was the birthplace of the economic revolution launched by Deng Xiaoping almost forty years ago and where stands one of the few monuments elevated to honor his memory. He will go after to Shanghai, the financial hub of the country and ends in Beijing, due to protocol reasons. The trip comes in a context of a bitter trade crisis with the U.S. and could provide France  with the opportunity to show off, along with China, its commitment to multilateralism, to trade development and to hail the support of the country to the Paris Agreement. Edouard Philippe will visit the new Shenzhen Peugeot factory, which is the fruit of the cooperation between the French carmaker and its Chinese partner Changan. The restructuration of the company with the coming of anotherone, Dong Feng as a shareholder had permitted four years ago to put an end to the major financial crisis it was then going through.

Shenzhen is just a few tens of kilometers from Taishan where EDF, with its Chinese long time partner CGN, is building two EPR nuclear reactors. The loading of the nuclear fuel of the first unit is completed and the nuclear reaction has started at the beginning of the month. The connection to the grid is now imminent. Will the Prime Minister make the detour to greet this success and put an official end to the continuous critics, not always without reasons, about France nuclear policy ? That will not make us forget the difficulties occurred during the building of the other EPR, the Finnish one and the Flamanville one. The whole nuclear road has been weakened and the State had to give its support to Areva last year and to restructure it. But his presence would constitute a positive signal in giving back trust to the entire sector which would see an encouraging message for the future.

EPR difficulties have made forgotten past successes of nuclear power. It has permitted to France to strengthen its energy independence, to have greenhouse gas emissions among the lowest among developed countries and to provide French people with the cheapest power price in Europe. The responsibility of the difficulties must be shared. The EPR was designed at the beginning of the Nineties to offer an answer to the worries provoked by the Tchernobyl disaster. The confinement wall had then to be strengthened and, in case of a failure, the reactor was protected against the melting of its heart. It is what it was called at that time the “passive safety”. But the State, without any EDF mobilization, opposed during more than ten years to its construction in France. When the Finnish utility TVO, approached by its usual supplier Siemens, proposed to build an EPR in its country, Areva had no choice and accepted to keep activity in its factories. But the company was not able to find an agreement with EDF, which was indispensable because its abilities were limited to the building of the nuclear island and definitely not to the construction of the whole power plant. The same problem occurred in Flamanville. The last order in France had been the Civaux N°2 power plant in 1992. Companies in charge of the building did lost most of their know-how which generated considerable extra-costs and delays.

The contrast with Taishan is striking. China, to the difference of France, never interrupted its nuclear program and the quality of the cooperation between EDF and its partner CGN which started in the Eighties with the first units built near Hong Kong in Daya Bay, has permitted to overpass the difficulties resulting of the construction of a new model. In going to Taishan, the Prime Minister would kill two birds with one shot: he would give his support to the nuclear industry, which then could turn off the page of a difficult decade, even if it is not going to satisfy everybody in his government, and hail another example of a successful industrial cooperation between France and China.

Major military battles cannot be won without allies. In foreign policy that suppose an alignment with common values. In globalization, industrial competition also dictates alliances  to be among the winners. But political alignment is not necessary. Success is based on a right analysis of the profit that each one can find in the partnership to build. The Peugeot example is the proof of that and the Prime Minister is completely right to go there to hail a partnership with a chinese carmaker. The other alliance, with Dong Feng,  when it was announced was submitted to many critics. China is, by far, the biggest car market in the world. These alliances are the right answer to get back the lost ground and the spectacular rebound of the company, which was near bankruptcy five years ago, gives a good example of the benefits of such strategic choices.

Progresses are still to be accomplished because the Chinese market has now specificities which are different from Western ones. Families own only one car and they are perceived as a sign of social recognition. Small models, which are prevailing in France, have a poor success and the Shenzhen factory, maybe, will offer DS7 and maybe the SUVs which go better with market expectations. But the breakthrough in China would have been impossible without such alliances. It is what Alstom failed to understand in the Nineties. The success of the High Speed Train attracted the attention of Chinese people. A partnership would have permitted to the company to participate to the huge investment programs which were going to be launched. It refused because it was scared by the possibility of a picking up of its know-how by potential competitors. It also thought that the Chinese projects were not credible. So it stayed on the platform. It was wrong and that did not impeach China to build the largest network in the world and even to extend it to neighboring countries through the Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese industry took the benefit to the point that its power and the potential threat it represents have been quoted or used as an alibi to put the French group under Siemens control.

EDF, Peugeot or Areva examples show that well conceived partnership can deliver beneficial successes for the French industry. The idea that China is an impenetrable and dangerous country where enterprises have only in mind to weaken their partners through the plundering of their technologies and in impeaching them to supply the local market must be banished. The Prime Minister trip is important. His visit to a French industrial site built through a partnership with a local player shows the right way. It would be hoped that it will be followed by a travel to Taishan and the homage paid to the hundreds of French engineers and technicians who have succeeded, with their Chinese counterparts to build and put in operation the first nuclear reactor of the new generation. They deserve it. That must, at last, incite French companies to open their eyes and to understand where are their interests. It is never too last to do well.