Lithuania's envoy calls Chinese ambassador's comment on ex-Soviet states 'unacceptable'

Diana Mickevičienė, theLithuanian ambassador to India, called recent remarks by the Chinese ambassador to France on formerSoviet nations as "unacceptable".Chinese ambassador Lu Shaye had caused waves of criticism after he questioned ex-Soviet nations over their sovereignty.

Amid the outrage, China caved in as its foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that Beijing "respects the sovereign state status of the participating republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union".

WION's Sidhant Sibal spoke to Mickevičienė, who was also Lithuania's last Ambassador to China, about the Chinese envoy's controversial remarks.

Asked about Lu's comments, Mickevičienė said: "We really reacted with lots of concerns. You may have seen my foreign minister as well as many foreign ministers from Europe rejecting that statement of the ambassador of China in France."
She said the Chinese narrative is "totally hostile against international law and the UN charter."

She further added that "as we speak, Chinese envoys of number countries are summoned to give wider explanation."

She argued that such a statement "not only derail the international law in large but repeat a narrative of the aggressive country and it's very unfortunate".

"This is unacceptable, China should explain it," she noted.

On being asked about all the questions related to the Chinese role as a neutral arbitrator, she said, "I have already referred to the chronology in 2022 when Beijing hosted the Olympics and post that Russia started the war [in Ukraine], we also have a look into the wider security initiative that China has presented to us."

"This global security initiative is not good for a small state like us because it basically talked about zones of influence and this is the problem...we feel our sovereignty has been really compromised by the statement," she mentioned.

Watch the interview here:

What did Lu Shaye say?

During an interview aired on French television on Friday, Lu said that the countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union "don't have effective status under international law because there is not an international agreement confirming their status as sovereign nations". The comments led to outrage across Europe as France and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have also condemned the official.

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