This Friday, the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, was invited on LCI to return to the war in Ukraine. The latter notably affirmed on Friday that the countries of the former USSR had no “effective status in international law”.
“Parrot” of “Russian propaganda”: the controversial remarks of the Chinese ambassador to France who, questioned about the Ukrainian province of Crimea, annexed since 2014 by Moscow, denied the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics, provoked a lifting of shields among the States concerned.
“It is strange to hear an absurd version of ‘the history of Crimea’ from a representative of a scrupulous country about its thousand-year-old history,” tweeted Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the presidency. Ukrainian. “All the countries of the former USSR have a clear sovereign status enshrined in international law,” he continued, before ironically: “If you want to be a major political player, don’t repeat like a parrot Russian propaganda.”
Asked Friday evening April 21 on the French channel LCI, the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, had indicated about Crimea, occupied by Moscow since 2014: “It depends on how we perceive this problem. “History. Crimea was originally Russia’s. It was Khrushchev who offered Crimea to Ukraine in the days of the Soviet Union.” He continued his argument, believing that the countries of the former USSR “do not have effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to concretize their status as sovereign countries”.
“Fighting Wolf”
Lu Shaye, who is part of the “wolves fighters”, this new clan of Chinese diplomats who do not mince their words in the face of a West perceived as systematically hostile to Beijing, had also called for people to stop “quibbling” on the question of post-war borders. Soviets. “Now the most urgent thing is to stop, to achieve the ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, he said. Comments that do not only concern these two countries, but all the republics born from the breakup of the USSR in 1991, i.e. 14 “United Nations member states, which this Chinese official literally wiped off the map in a single statement. mind-boggling”, comments Thomas Friang, the founder of the Open Diplomacy Institute, a French think-tank, for the Sunday newspaper.
The Baltic States, now members of the European Union and NATO, do not hide their anger. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics denounced the “completely unacceptable” remarks. His Estonian counterpart Margus Tsahkna described them as “false”, stemming from a “misinterpretation of history”. “According to international law, the Baltic states have been sovereign since 1918, but they were occupied for 50 years” by the USSR, he continued.
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“The EU can only assume that these statements do not represent China’s official position”, castigated the head of its diplomacy Josep Borrell, also criticizing “unacceptable” remarks France has declared to have ” read with dismay”. Ukraine has been recognized internationally “within borders including Crimea in 1991 by the entire international community, including China”, insisted Paris, recalling that the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 is “illegal with regard to of international law”.
Embarrassment
The statements of the “wolf” Shaye embarrass French diplomacy, barely two weeks after Emmanuel Macron visited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to encourage him to “bring Russia to its senses” vis-à-vis against Ukraine and urge it not to deliver arms to Moscow. If Beijing says it is officially neutral, Xi Jinping has never condemned the Russian invasion or even spoken on the phone, so far, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Conversely, he recently went to Moscow to reaffirm his partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the guise of an anti-Western front.
Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping then issued a joint statement in which they pledged to “support any effort to restore peace in Ukraine”. The French president had above all aroused a wave of incomprehension by declaring that Europe should not automatically align itself with the United States or Beijing in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, when Washington is Kiev’s main military support. , far ahead of the EU. Among the then detractors of Emmanuel Macron, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis split a new perplexed tweet. “If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic states don’t trust China to ‘broker peace in Ukraine’,” he observed, “here’s a Chinese ambassador who says Crimea is Russian and the borders of our countries have no legal basis.”