“I express my full solidarity with the countries attacked in reinterpreting their history and with our European allies.” President Macron said on the statements made by the Chinese ambassador in Paris on Friday, April 21, on the “former Soviet countries”. has that “are not sovereign”. Lu Shaye’s words caused a stir, which the French President now has to comment on: “We know the story and we adhere to internationally recognized borders, and I am careful not to weaken that position. I don’t think it’s part of a diplomat’s position to use that kind of language,” Macron said on the sidelines of the North Sea States Summit in Ostend. A few hours ago, live on French television, the ambassador declared the non-sovereignty of the former Soviet states “because they have no effective status in international law, there was no agreement to concretize their sovereignty”. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also immediately asked for clarifications on Shaye’s statements upon his arrival at the Foreign Affairs Council. A request that the Chinese government itself granted shortly thereafter: “China respects the state of sovereignty of the former Soviet republics,” said Beijing Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning. The position of the Chinese embassy in France reiterated: “The verdicts of the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, who questioned the sovereignty of the former Soviet states on television on Friday, were not a political statement, but an expression of personal opinions in a television debate,” it says in the official communication of the diplomatic mission. “They should not be over-interpreted and China’s position on relevant issues has not changed,” the text continues. “Regarding territorial sovereignty, the Chinese side’s position is consistent and clear, respecting the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries and supporting the aims and principles of the UN Charter.” A distancing that Borrell welcomed: “It’s important that Beijing is distancing itself from the words of its ambassador to France,” he said at the end of the Foreign Affairs Council, “now we have a concrete answer, that these positions are not only China’s official position and it’s good news.”
Words of the Ambassador
In 2014, when asked about Ukraine’s borders and Russian-occupied Crimea, the Chinese ambassador responded to Beijing’s possible role in mediating the war in Ukraine: “It depends on how you perceive the problem. There is history. Crimea belonged to Russia, Khrushchev offered it to Ukraine at the time of the USSR». Immediately afterwards he called on the international community to stop “spitting” on the question of the former Soviet borders. “Now there is an urgent need to implement the armistice,” he declared, regarding the borders as a mere formality, with the states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet empire thus remaining in an undefined gray line.
Read more about Open
Also read:
