Kiev Denounces Chinese Ambassador’s Remarks on Crimea’s History

Kiev on Sunday denounced an “absurd version” of the history of Crimea, annexed in 2014 by Russia, after controversial remarks by the Chinese ambassador to France who questioned the peninsula’s belonging to Ukraine.

“It is strange to hear an absurd version of + the history of Crimea + from a representative of a scrupulous country about its millennial history”, released on Twitter Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency. .

Asked Friday evening 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. There is history. Crimea was at the very beginning to Russia. It was Khrushchev who gave 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”.

The Chinese diplomat also called for people to stop “quibbling” over the issue of post-Soviet borders. “Now the most urgent thing is to stop, to achieve the ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, he said.

On Sunday, Mr. Podoliak stressed that “all the countries of the former USSR have a clear sovereign status enshrined in international law”, calling on Mr. Shaye, not to “repeat Russian propaganda”.

The statements of the Chinese representative also made French diplomacy react.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that it had “learned with dismay” of these remarks, asking China “to say (if they) reflect its position, which we hope not to be the case”.

Ukraine was internationally recognized “within 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”, insisted Paris, recalling that Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 is “illegal under international law”.

If Beijing says it is officially neutral, Chinese President 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.

During a visit to China in early April, Emmanuel Macron urged Xi Jinping to “bring Russia to its senses” vis-à-vis Ukraine and urged him not to deliver weapons to Moscow.

The two Heads of State had published a joint declaration in which they undertook to “support any effort in favor of the return of peace in Ukraine”.

ATS