China’s Ambassador to France Says Ex-Soviet States Lack Basis for Sovereignty | Hacker News Reader

China’s Ambassador to France Says Ex-Soviet States Lack Basis for Sovereignty

wsj.com

46 pointsmoose_man43 comments

I'm seeing a lot of behavior that can only be described as incompetence among China's diplomatic corps. This contrasts with their pre-Xi effectiveness.

Anyone know what's going on? (EDIT: A friend pointed me to this [1]. Not a complete explanation. But an obviously brain dead strategy designed for domestic appeasement, not external goals.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy

China is simply normalizing the notion that borders are ephemeral. Who’s entitled to them and where they are should be left to powerful states, like China, to dictate.

No, the ambassador's statements are completely contrary to Chinese policy. He went off script and stuck his foot in his mouth.

In general, China is extremely hard-line on the idea that sovereignty is inviolable, and that countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

Far from saying that powerful states should dictate borders, China - much more than the US or any other major state - insists that borders cannot be shifted. China hasn't even recognized Russia's annexation of Crimea, despite Russia's closeness with China. If China were really trying to normalize the notion that borders are ephemeral, it would have recognized Crimea as Russian long ago. It hasn't.

Clearly ... presumably with Taiwan in the background. I don't think the Chinese much care about these territories or Russia's announced, preferred, status except what it means for them domestically again Taiwan.

Surely it's occured to them that maybe Britain wants HK back cause, you know, things are not clear. Not that the British would be that dumb --- but it's an argument that cuts multiple ways none good.

Finally,you gotta believe china sees Russia currently as a giant baby sitting project well considering how that plays well for china.

*borders

It's a side of effect of purges and centralization. It changes from a bureaucracy to giant game of telephone where the message is their interpretation of what Xi wants.

It is not a small topic to talk about, but in short Chinese are somehow like a spring. If you behave more gently, they will behave more violently, while if you behave more toughly, they will behave more obediently.

Yah - usually Chinese government employees are smarter. This sounds like some recycled Russian drivel.

If he is also including Russia in this group then I would guess this might be the basis for China reclaiming lost territory from Russia after it loses the war.

Today the Chinese are buying Natural Gas and Oil from fields that were once Chinese territory. I'm sure this must really hurt their pride, that Russia stole this land from them.

China deciding to invade Russia instead of Taiwan would be a quality and welcome plot twist.

Haha .. it's the geopolitical equivalent of confuse a cat (of Monty Python fame). Japan better watch out. They could be next. Meow indeed!

After watching Russia's performanc in Ukraine, I'm sure the thought has flitted across Xi's mind once or twice.

Given that mainland China is a revolutionary government dating from 1948 or so, they should be careful discussing who has and lacks sovereignty…

East Taiwan doesn't have sovereignty to declare themselves their own nation.

They could claim to be the state driven there by the revolution on the mainland. And I suspect they were recognized as that for a while after ww ii.

Republics were legally allowed to secede under the Soviet constitution. I’d like to see their reasoning lol

https://archive.is/7c5tR

(e: Low) quality troll. Ex 16+1 baltic countries dish hard against PRC sovereignty issues with respect to TW recently but can't take when theirs get questioned. I don't think this is part of some new grand PRC strategy - people who met him while Canadian ambassador said man enjoys talking shit. Same dude who suggested pro-independence TW faction will be getting some re-educating. Eitherway, probably fine for PRC to troll Baltics who are deep in US camp for domestic lulz.

'When pressed during the interview on French TV to clarify his position, Mr. Lu replied: "One shouldn’t keep quibbling over such matters."'

The same could be said about Taiwan.

"One shouldn’t keep quibbling over such matters."

No, you probably shouldn't. Maybe Mr. Lu should take his own advice.

Does this include the ex-Soviet state Russia?

“Even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have effective status, as we say, under international law because there’s no international accord to concretize their status as a sovereign country,” Mr. Lu said.

This sounds like China should be cool with Taiwan if there were an international accord to recognize its sovereignty.

I can already see China having a temper tantrum when those non-existent states will start recognizing some other certain non-existent state.

If China won't retract this statement, it is self sabotage of their own diplomacy after decades of trying to get those few remaining micro countries to stop recognizing Taiwan.

I feel like the word sovereignty is a bit odd in the modern world. Classically I believe it meant that a nation (etc) could stand alone and defend itself against reasonable (i.e. non suicidal) encroachments from its neighbors, and therefore it had sole discretion over policies within its borders. I think that is pretty clearly not the case today for most “sovereign” nations today? I wonder why the word took on a different meaning? Is it just rude to call someone a vassal state these days?

Afghanistan is a relatively poor, undeveloped country, yet they just demonstrated their sovereignty in your sense against the most capable country on earth. Of course, if the US wanted to they could have steamrolled afghanistan - but they didn't. What changed is that the willingness to destroy people in war evaporated, and so the ability in theory to conquer a country, and the willingness to do so given the costs it would entail diverged significantly. This might be particular to the west, and countries like china or russia don't care as much. But they are living in the world created by US hegemony, which in large part entails playing by the US' rules.

> What changed is that the willingness to destroy people in war evaporated, and so the ability in theory to conquer a country, and the willingness to do so given the costs it would entail diverged significantly. This might be particular to the west, and countries like china or russia don't care as much.

The USSR tried to invade and occupy Afghanistan too. Lasted less than 10 years despite being next door.

Correction: The US has never tried to occupy Afghanistan. So there is no "too".

Feels like you could make a case either way, like how "freedom fighters" or "resistance fighters" might be used for some groups vs "illegal combatants" for others... or even the same group at different times.

The US toppled the government and had troops stationed there for ~20 years.

I think depending on your political leanings you could reasonably frame that as a) police action and support for a fragile government, or b) an occupation propping up a puppet regime.

Occupation doesn’t always have a negative connotation in popular culture, e.g. the allied occupation of Germany after WWII. I don’t really see how Afghanistan wasn’t an occupation, regardless of whether one is for or against (also confused who could possibly be for it today).

Yeah I’ll buy that, Afghanistan is sovereign. Terrain matters! Switzerland may be as well.

Of course it does. This is the country that insists that Taiwan is not allowed to exist either.

Doesn’t Taiwan continue to claim rightful ownership to all of mainland China as well? Or has that changed?

I'm not saying China = Nazi Germany, but I wonder if statements like this came up during the lead up to WW2?

Did Von Ribbentrop make statements to the media that "the State of Austria lacks a basis for sovereignty" before Germany annexed the country? I imagine something similar?

It often occurs to me to that when you start to put all the pieces together on China the situation is far more serious than most people appreciate.

Taiwan's fate seems to have been decided already from my POV

I agree 100%. Xi has already stated at the start of his 3rd term that the 10 year goal is reunification with Taiwan, peacefully or not.

Is this a thinly veiled claim by China not only on Russia but also on other ex-soviet republics?