French president Emmanuel Macron rounded off his state visit to China on Friday by taking tea with counterpart Xi Jinping in Guangzhou, the manufacturing megacity at the heart of China’s export-led economy.The choice of Guangzhou, where Xi’s father was a senior official, conveyed a personal touch by the Chinese leader towards Macron. But it also nodded towards French interest in maintaining economic and trade interests with China, despite western outrage over Xi’s support for Vladimir Putin and refusal to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Macron, who was accompanied to China by dozens of French business leaders, was joined for part of his three-day visit by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a gesture of common European purpose towards Beijing.

Yet any sense of unity was undercut by arrangements that flattered the French leader with a banquet, military parade and other trappings of a state visit, while von der Leyen was excluded from several of the lavish events.