Today at 23:47
The statement of the Chinese ambassador to France that the Ukrainian Crimea belongs to Russia contradicted all the tasks pursued by the Chinese side during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron. This opinion was expressed today, on April 24, on the FREEDOM TV channel by the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (2004-2005), Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States (2006-2010), Ambassador of Ukraine to France (2014- 2020) Oleg Shamshur.
“Given the visit to France and given the desire of China to present itself as a solid player in international politics, to build its own vision of this world politics, the situation with the statement of the Chinese ambassador to France was, in general, rather strange for me. It contradicted the tasks pursued by the Chinese side during Macron’s visit. It was an absolutely counterproductive statement, on the one hand,” Shamshur said.
On the other hand, the diplomat clarified, knowing how foreign policy is built and implemented in authoritarian states, which is China, these statements could not have been made spontaneously and without the knowledge of Beijing.
“Therefore, I would say that these statements were absurd for me. Now the situation has returned to normal, with the Chinese ambassador’s statements disavowed because they are absolutely contrary to China’s desire to use France to increase contradictions with Washington and split the position of the European Union. Since they were so provocative that they caused a very strong reaction not only from the Baltic states, this is quite understandable, but from almost everyone who commented on this statement,” says Shamshur.
He noted that this statement, especially from a Chinese diplomat, is absolutely irrational, if not to assume that he was given some kind of task.
“Because in a normal country, an ambassador cannot act as some kind of blogger, express his personal opinion. He must always act within the framework of efforts to implement the interests of his state, the country where he works, ”concluded Oleg Shamshur.
Note, according to the Bloomberg news agency, the Chinese Embassy in France deleted the transcript of the scandalous interview of its ambassador Lou Shaye, who questioned the independence of the post-Soviet states and called Crimea historically Russian. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Ning, said that the position voiced by their ambassador does not correspond to the point of view of official Beijing.
