The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry is summoning the chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Vilnius to demand explanations about the statements made by the Chinese Ambassador to France on the national sovereignty of the Baltic states.
“Regarding the unacceptable statements of the Chinese ambassador to France on the national sovereignty of the Baltic states, we will summon the chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Vilnius to provide explanations on Monday. This step is coordinated with Latvia and Estonia,” the ministry said in a Twitter post on Saturday night.
Paulina Levickytė, spokeswoman for the foreign minister, confirmed that to BNS on Sunday.
Latvian and Estonian foreign ministers also said their ministries would summon Chinese diplomats for explanations.
Speaking Friday on the LCI news channel, Chinese Ambassador in France Lu Shaye suggested that 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”.
Asked if Crimea was part of Ukraine during his interview on LCI, Lu replied, “it depends on how you look at the problem. There’s history. Crimea was Russian at the start.”
“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,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in a Twitter post on Saturday.
Meanwhile, over 80 parliamentarians from different European countries have called on French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna to expel Lu from Paris.
The joint statement of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, signed by European MPs and 11 chairpeople of foreign affairs committees, was announced on Facebook on Sunday evening by Lithuanian MP Žygimantas Pavilionis, who chairs the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“As members of various European parliaments, in order to draw your attention to this, we call on the French government to take decisive steps in response to the aggressive comments made by the Chinese ambassador to France,” the statement said.
“We call on you to immediately declare Ambassador Lu Shaye persona non grata in response to his totally unacceptable behaviour,” the document said.
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