In an interview on French television, Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye previously questioned the sovereignty of states that were once part of the Soviet Union.
(Photo: imago images / Xinhua)
Dusseldorf The Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, is one of Beijing’s diplomats, known as the “wolf warrior”, who repeatedly attracts attention with aggressive geopolitical statements. With their sharp statements, the group wants to underline the increasing geopolitical importance of their country.
During his time as Chinese ambassador in Paris, Lu made headlines several times with controversial statements. Now he broke another taboo in a TV interview: the diplomat questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet states like Ukraine.
“These former USSR countries have no actual status in international law because there is no international agreement that establishes their sovereign status,” Lu said. France, Ukraine and the Baltic States reacted with dismay.
Latvia summoned the head of the Chinese embassy in Riga for Monday. This step has been coordinated with Lithuania and Estonia, said Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics on Twitter at the weekend. “We expect an explanation and a complete retraction of this statement from the Chinese side,” he wrote.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote that the statements show why the Baltic states did not trust China as a potential peace mediator in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Regained independence in 1991
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were alternately occupied by the Soviet Union and Germany during World War II. After the end of the war, the three small Baltic states in north-eastern Europe became Soviet republics against their will for decades.
They only regained their independence in 1991 and have belonged to the EU and NATO since 2004. When asked in a television interview whether the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Moscow belonged to Ukraine, Lu replied that it was not that easy to answer.
This is how the Handelsblatt reports on the Ukraine war:
It’s not the first time Lu has made controversial statements. One of the things he said last year was that Taiwanese residents needed to be “transformed.” He also spoke of “foreign forces” that had heated up the protests in China against the strict Covid restrictions.
With agency material
More: Current news on the development of the Ukraine war can be found in our news blog