The Chinese ambassador in Paris, Lu Shaye, has unleashed a barrage of criticism in Europe for some controversial statements in which he denies the sovereignty of the countries that made up the former USSR. In an interview with the French channel LCI, the diplomat assured that “the countries of the Soviet Union do not have an effective status under international law because there is no international agreement to specify their status as sovereign countries.”
Next, Lu Shaye, when asked if he considers Crimea to be Russian or Ukrainian territory, notes that “there’s the story. Crimea belonged to Russia first. It was Khrushchev who offered Crimea to Ukraine during the Soviet Union era.” says.
These appreciations have provoked a diplomatic crisis. The French Foreign Ministry has called the diplomat for consultations and in a statement regrets the statements. “It is up to China to say whether these statements reflect its position, which we hope is not the case,” the statement said, recalling that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea is “illegal under international law.”
Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, also reacted on Twitter on Sunday: “It is strange to hear an absurd version of the Crimean history from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its millennial history,” Podoliak said.
He reminds Shaye that the countries that emerged as independent nations after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 “have clear sovereign status enshrined in international law.”
The reactions do not stop: the foreign representatives of Latvia and Estonia have described these comments as unacceptable and 80 parliamentarians of the European Union have published a tribune in the French newspaper Le Monde in which they say that the Chinese ambassador in Paris “clearly violates the international law” and “must be considered a threat to the security of France’s European partner countries.
On Twitter, the high representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, considered the words of the Chinese diplomat unacceptable, saying that “the EU assumes that these statements do not represent the official policy of the country.”
This crisis occurs several weeks after the visit of the president, Emmanuel Macron, to China, where he tried to approach positions with the president, Xi Jinping, so that he could act as a mediator in the war in Ukraine. “Let’s hope he comes to his senses,” the Frenchman had assured after meeting with his counterpart.
China has fired its representative and says that Beijing has been “objective and impartial” on sovereignty issues, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman reacted on Monday. “China’s position on the relevant comments has not changed,” the spokesman said.
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