Ping pong and a visit to pandas, Xi Jinping's cry: as a politician, Macron went to China

French President Emmanuel Macron ended his trip to China this week, AFP reports, on a more intimate and relaxed note than it was before his visit to China.

Away from the monumental House of People's Assemblies in In Beijing, where the meeting took place on Thursday, President Xi Jinping, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, acted as a guide for the French presidential couple who arrived at the Dujiangyan Dam (UNESCO World Heritage Site — EADaily). Through an interpreter, Macron was shown an ingenious irrigation system that dates back to the III century BC and still irrigates the plains of Sichuan Province.

President Xi Jinping praised the "wisdom" of the ancestors of modern Chinese.

"This is an ecological engineering system that embodies harmony between man and nature, and this spirit of engineering permeates all spheres, whether it is water resources management or public administration; we can always draw inspiration from it," he said.

"It is impressive to see how man dominates nature," said Emmanuel Macron.

Also on Friday, the head of the French state met with the athletes brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun, who are in China at the World Table Tennis Championships. For her part, Brigitte Macron went to the Big Panda Conservation Center in Chengdu, where two 17-year-old individuals who were transferred to France for temporary use in 2012 have just returned.

Also on Thursday in In Beijing, the French president held a more intensive exchange of views, urging his Chinese counterpart to take measures to end the conflict on the Ukraine, according to the source, using its "influence" on Russia and correcting economic imbalances with France and Europe. But, as evidenced by officials in In Beijing, the Chinese politician responded to him very sharply and even in raised tones.