Baltics upset at China envoy’s stance on ex-Soviet countries

Helsinki, April 23

The three Baltic states have strongly condemned comments by China’s envoy to France, who appeared to suggest in a recent French television interview that former Soviet republics aren’t sovereign nations.

The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in separate announcements late Saturday deemed statements by Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, as unacceptable. In a recent interview with the French news channel LCI, he was asked if he thought that the Crimean Peninsula belongs to Ukraine.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. “That depends … on how one perceives this problem,” the envoy told the broadcaster.

“There’s the history. Crimea was at the beginning Russian, no? It was (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev who gave Crimea to Ukraine in the era of the Soviet Union.” When the channel’s presenter noted that according to international law, Crimea is part of Ukraine, the Chinese ambassador drew a parallel to the former Soviet republics — including the three Baltic nations — that broke free after the USSR collapsed in 1991. “With regards to international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries, they do not, they do not have the status — how to say it? — that’s effective in international law, because there is no international agreement to solidify their status as a sovereign country,” he said.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted that “If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic States don’t trust China to broker peace in Ukraine, here’s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries’ borders have no legal basis.” His Estonian counterpart, Margus Tsahkna, said Chinese ambassador’s comments were “false and a misinterpretation of history,” while Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics said that the statements were “completely unacceptable”.

Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius would each summon China’s ambassador or representative for an explanation of the envoy’s comments, the three Baltic countries said in a statement. — AP