On Monday, April 24, 2023 at 12:53:51 PM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Monday, April 24, 2023 at 6:03:45 PM UTC, bmoore wrote:
> > On Sunday, April 23, 2023 at 6:33:57 PM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:
> > >
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/baltics-condemn-china-envoys-stance-soviet-nations-98784670
> > >
> > > "In a recent interview with the French news channel LCI, he was asked if he thought that the Crimean Peninsula belongs to Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal.
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> > > “That depends ... on how one perceives this problem,” the envoy told the broadcaster. “There’s the history. Crimea was at the beginning Russian, no? It was (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev who gave Crimea to Ukraine in the era of the Soviet Union.”
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> > > When the channel's presenter noted that according to international law, Crimea is part of Ukraine, the Chinese ambassador drew a parallel to the former Soviet republics — including the three Baltic nations — that broke free after the USSR collapsed in 1991.
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> > > “With regards to international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries, they do not, they do not have the status — how to say it? — that’s effective in international law, because there is no international agreement to solidify their status as a sovereign country," he said.
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> > > Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted that “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: "a Chinese ambassador arguing ...our countries' borders have no legal basis."
>
> China has no problem with the Baltic states as independent nations currently members of the UN. But as long as there were no mutual acceptance between these nations and its neighbors in the form of mutual legal instruments, the borders have no legal basis. Accepting Lithuanian as a nation hence does not obligate China to prefer its view of its border over its neighbors' view of its border.