Foreign Ministry summons Chinese chargé d'affaires in Estonia
Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
24.04.2023
Today 24 April, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Meng Jianhua, the Chargé d'Affaires of the Chinese embassy, to object to the claims made by Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye that questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet states and Crimea being part of Ukraine.
Today 24 April, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Meng Jianhua, the Chargé d'Affaires of the Chinese embassy, to object to the claims made by Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye that questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet states and Crimea being part of Ukraine.
Kristi Karelsohn, Director General of the Foreign Ministry's Department for Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and Africa, asked for an explanation from the chargé d'affaires and said even if it was the personal position of Ambassador Lu, he was nevertheless an official representative of China. "We hope that representatives of China will refrain from expressing these kinds of opinions in the future," Karelsohn said. "We believe it was a single incident and we hope it will not affect the relations of Estonia and China," she said, welcoming the public explanation of the spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, stating that China's official position had not changed and the Chinese government recognised our status as a sovereign state.
Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called the claims of the Chinese ambassador to France false and reminded that according to international law, Estonia has been a sovereign state since 1918, and Chinese President Jiang Zemin declared this fact in a joint statement made with President Lennart Meri in 1994. "China also reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine, in 1994 when it joined the Budapest Memorandum," Tsahkna added.
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