(NewsNation) — French President Emmanuel Macron recently raised eyebrows with comments about Taiwan after visiting China.

“The question we need to answer, as Europeans, is the following: Is it in our interest to accelerate (a crisis) on Taiwan? No,” Macron was quoted as saying in an interview published Sunday in French newspaper Les Echos and by Politico Europe.

“The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security adviser, says Macron’s remarks were “short-sighted.”

“This is a European problem, just as much as it’s an American problem. His remarks were unwise, out of touch with reality, but show what his real attitude is,” Bolton said. “You know, he tried to take them down off social media after they were reported. So, he knows that he made that a key blunder and diplomacy of saying what he actually thinks. But I think it’ll wake everybody in East Asia up.”

Macron’s comments came before China launched large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan that simulated sealing off the island.

“When Macron goes off on his own, part of the damage is China doesn’t know whether he is speaking just for France. Is he just speaking for Emmanuel Macron, or is he speaking for all of Europe? So I think American diplomats and the press should be saying to key European leaders: Does Macron speak for you? Is that European Union policy? Let’s hear it.”

After a civil war, China and Taiwan split in 1949. The government in Beijing wants the island to rejoin the mainland. The two have maintained an occasionally uneasy peace for decades.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.