{"id":154970,"date":"2023-04-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=917185"},"modified":"2023-04-23T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T00:00:00","slug":"baltic-states-condemn-china-envoys-remarks-over-sovereignty-of-ex-soviet-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/04\/23\/baltic-states-condemn-china-envoys-remarks-over-sovereignty-of-ex-soviet-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltic states condemn China envoy\u2019s remarks over sovereignty of ex-Soviet nations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed dismay after China\u2019s ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty not only of Ukraine, but all the former Soviet Republics including the Baltic states.
\nLu Shaye\u2019s remarks in a TV interview late on Friday raise fresh questions about the faith the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has placed in China to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.
\nLu had been asked whether he considered the peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, part of Ukraine under international law.
\n\u201cEven these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have effective status, as we say, under international law because there\u2019s no international accord to concretise their status as a sovereign country,\u201d Lu said.
\nLu\u2019s comments appeared to brush aside the sovereignty of countries, including ironically Russia, that formally recognised each other after the Soviet Union\u2019s dissolution and are represented at the United Nations and in European security organisations.
\nAsked if Crimea was part of Ukraine, he said the answer depended on one\u2019s position, and it was not so simple.
\nHe added: \u201cThere is a history here where Crimea was originally part of Russia. It was Khrushchev who offered Crimea to Ukraine during the period of the Soviet Union\u201d.
\nFrance officially reacted by saying it heard his remarks with dismay and demanded to know if they reflected China\u2019s official position, \u201cwhich we hope not to be the case.\u201d
\n\u201cWe stress our full solidarity with all of our allies and partners concerned, who have gained their long-awaited independence after decades of oppression,\u201d a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. \u201cThe annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 is illegal under international law.\u201d
\nUkraine was recognised \u201cwithin borders including Crimea in 1991 by the entire international community, including China, at the fall of the USSR as a new member state of the United Nations\u201d, Paris said.
\nThe French president\u2019s diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, has been deputed to hold talks with China to explore a possible peace initiative, a move that has alienated many in Europe.
\nThe Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rink\u0113vi\u010ds, said the Chinese ambassador\u2019s comments were \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d.
\n\u201cWe expect [an] explanation from the Chinese side and complete retraction of this statement,\u201d he said, adding there would be \u201ca strong and unified response\u201d from the EU at a meeting of European foreign affairs ministers in Brussels on Monday.
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\nEstonia\u2019s foreign ministry summoned China\u2019s ambassador to Estonia to clarify the country\u2019s position over its country\u2019s sovereignty, calling Shaye\u2019s position \u201cincomprehensible\u201d.
\nEstonia pointed out that since 1994 China had recognised the Budapest memorandum agreement under which Russia accepted Ukraine\u2019s borders and Kyiv agreed to hand over its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.
\nLithuania\u2019s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said the Chinese ambassador\u2019s remarks demonstrated why European countries had little faith in China\u2019s ability to play a constructive role in brokering peace.
\n\u201cIf anyone is still wondering why the Baltic states don\u2019t trust China to \u2018broker peace in Ukraine\u2019, here\u2019s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries\u2019 borders have no legal basis,\u201d he said on Twitter. He said the Chinese ambassador to Lithuania was being summoned on Monday to provide an explanation.
\nVadym Omelchenko, Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to France, said in a Twitter post: \u201cThere\u2019s no place for ambiguity. Crimea is Ukraine. The Soviet empire no longer exists. History moves on.\u201d
\nLu\u2019s comments appeared to contradict China\u2019s position paper on Ukraine issued in February, which pledges to uphold \u201cthe sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries \u2026 big or small\u201d.
\nIn a related development, Brazilian president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, on a visit to Portugal was forced to make some of his strongest criticisms of Russia\u2019s invasion, after appearing to be entirely neutral in the conflict on a visit to China last week.
\nIn Lisbon, he said: \u201cThe war should not have started. Russia should not have invaded, but it did. The fact is that it happened. So instead of choosing sides, I want to find a third way, the construction of peace.\u201d Ukrainians protested outside the Brazilian embassy in Lisbon calling Russia a terrorist state.
\nLast weekend, Lula said Europe should stop supplying arms to Ukraine since it was prolonging the conflict, a position that would leave the aggressor and victim treated in the same way. He made his remarks shortly after visiting China\u2019s president, Xi Jinping.
\nThe Brazilian president, offering himself as a peace broker, met the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Bras\u00edlia last week but has never met any senior Ukrainians. Lavrov has praised Lula for \u201chis clear understanding of the genesis of the situation\u201d.
\nThe White House has accused Lula of \u201cparroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without looking at the facts\u201d. The concern in Washington is that countries such as Brazil, eager to build their trading relationship with China, are determined to ignore the Ukraine issue knowing that China wants Russia protected from defeat.
\nThe UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will set out Britain\u2019s approach to China in a major speech on Tuesday. No senior British figure has been to China since the country\u2019s economy opened up after Covid.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed dismay after China\u2019s ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty not only of Ukraine, but all the former Soviet Republics including the Baltic states.
\nLu Shaye\u2019s remarks in a TV interview late on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,586,113,194,249,106,465,900,1242],"tags":[2636,8493,3472,10324,3610,10342,3942,10352,7654,10315,8694,10349,10411,10345,3468,3402,3549,10351],"class_list":["post-154970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-economy","category-google","category-news-chinese-law","category-russia","category-search-engine","category-social-media","category-tv","category-twitter","tag-brazil","tag-britain","tag-chinese","tag-covid-19","tag-diplomacy","tag-embassy","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-france","tag-media-intelligence","tag-paris","tag-peace","tag-portugal","tag-propaganda","tag-terrorism","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-nations","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154971,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154970\/revisions\/154971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}