China says it respects sovereignty of ex-Soviet states, after EU uproar over Ukraine comment

China respects the status of former Soviet member states as sovereign nations, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after comments by its envoy to Paris triggered an uproar among European capitals.

Several EU foreign ministers had said earlier that comments by ambassador Lu Shaye – in which he appeared to question the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet states – were unacceptable and had asked Beijing to clarify its stance.

Asked about his position on whether Crimea was part of Ukraine or not, Lu said in an interview aired on French TV on Friday that historically it was part of Russia and had been offered to Ukraine by former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

“These ex-USSR countries don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status,” Lu added.

Lu has earned himself a reputation as one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats, so called for their hawkish and abrasive style.

His latest comments were “totally unacceptable”, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told reporters ahead of a Luxembourg meeting of EU foreign ministers. “I hope the bosses of this ambassador will make these things straight.”

Several other EU ministers also called the comments unacceptable, and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the three Baltic countries – all formerly part of the Soviet Union – would summon Chinese representatives to officially ask for clarification and check if its position had changed.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn called Lu’s remarks a “blunder” and said efforts were being made to calm things down.

‘OBJECTIVE AND IMPARTIAL’

Asked if Lu’s stance represented China’s official position, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Beijing respected the status of the former Soviet member states as sovereign nations following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Mao told a regular news briefing that it was her remarks on sovereignty that represented China’s official government stance.

Her statement appeared to be an effort to distance Beijing from Lu’s comments and ease the tension with Brussels.

China has been “objective and impartial” on issues of sovereignty, she said.

A French official said a “very firm” discussion would take place with the Chinese ambassador at the French foreign ministry later on Monday.

Lu has been summoned to the foreign ministry several times in the past, including for suggesting France was abandoning old people in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic and for calling a respected China scholar at a French think-tank a “mad hyena”.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the 27-nation bloc would, at Monday’s meeting “assess and recalibrate strategy towards China”, and that Lu’s comments would be part of the discussion.

“We will have to continue discussions about China, it is one of the most important issues of our foreign policy,” he said.

EU leaders would discuss the bloc’s stance towards China and its future relations with Beijing during their next summit in June, EU Council President Charles Michel said.

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Lu Shaye: Chinese envoy who questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty no stranger to controversy

Lu Shaye, 58, a prominent practitioner of China’s abrasive ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, has courted controversy since taking up his post in Paris in 2019.

Below is a brief rundown of his most contentious moments.

– In an interview aired on French television on Friday, Lu said former Soviet Union countries “don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status.”

His comments were condemned across the region and drew questions over China’s previous calls to respect national sovereignty in order to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine started by its close ally Russia.

A transcript of Lu’s remarks posted on the Chinese embassy’s official WeChat account was subsequently deleted. The embassy did not reply to a request for comment.

Asked about Lu’s comments on Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing respects the sovereignty of all former republics of the Soviet Union, which was dissolved in 1991.

– Lu told a group of journalists at a reception in Paris in December 2022 that historic protests against China’s strict COVID-19 controls were “taken advantage of” by unnamed foreign forces, without providing evidence.

The protests, unprecedented in President Xi Jinping’s decade in power, spread across numerous cities last November. They helped hasten the end of three years of restrictions, sources have previously told Reuters.

– A few months earlier, in August 2022, Lu had weighed in on China’s perennial bugbear: the democratically-governed island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

Lu said that Taiwanese people had been brainwashed by ideas about independence, and that they can become patriots after being “re-educated”.

His remark drew parallels with China’s description of its educational centres for ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western region of Xinjiang.

The United Nations has said these camps amount to “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” and may constitute crimes against humanity. China has vigorously denied that.

– In April 2020, months after COVID-19 first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and started spreading around the world, the French foreign ministry summoned Lu over an article posted on the Chinese embassy’s website.

The post, ascribed to an anonymous Chinese diplomat, insinuated that residents of retirement homes in France had been left to die of hunger and disease as COVID spread in Europe.