Lu Shaye (right), ambassador of China in France. Photo:AFP
The Chinese Ambassador to France made solemn representations on the Taiwan question and the EU's latest sanction on China over Xinjiang in a very intense meeting with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday when the Chinese official denounced a series of misdeeds of France, firmly defending China's position and harshly criticizing France for poisoning the bilateral relationship, the Global Times learned.
Lu Shaye, an outspoken Chinese diplomat, met his French counterpart in Quai d'Orsay on Tuesday, and he expressed strong opposition to the latest moves of the French officials, institutions and public servants in violating the one-China principle, including the Taipei representative office in France wrongly using "diplomatic titles and vehicles," and urged France to immediately correct those mistakes.
The Global Times learned that Wu Chih-chung from the Taipei representative office in France has been openly claiming himself "as being the pseudo-ambassador," and using a diplomatic plate for the vehicle, hanging up "the island's flag," which the Chinese Embassy in France has been protesting, but France has not taken this protest seriously.
Instead of speaking in French, Lu expressed his views in Chinese, while the situation got highly intense, with "a strong smell of gunpowder," a source close to the matter told the Global Times, who preferred not to be named.
However, some French media outlets depicted another scenario of the meeting by saying the "summoning Chinese ambassadors" scenes occurred in Europe, following the Chinese government countermeasures to EU sanctions on Chinese individuals and entities over Xinjiang. "The most spectacular one was in Paris, where the French Foreign Ministry sharply lectured Lu, accusing him of 'insults, invectives and threats' against a researcher and Parliament members," according to a report by AFP.
However, the source said the situation was different from what has been described by the French media. "Lu went there as scheduled. He was very angry, sternly denouncing a series of acts and misdeeds of France, which he thinks was an attempt to poison China-France relations," the source said.
The Chinese diplomat also expressed serious concerns about the EU sanctions on China, reiterating that Beijing's reaction is reasonable and justified. "What Paris has done is to damage the friendly environment between the two countries, and what the Chinese Embassy has done was to safeguard the political basis and environment for the ties," the source said.
Lu won widespread support from the Chinese public after he pushed back against radical words and deeds by some French politicians and pseudo-scholars over China's internal affairs in Xinjiang, and shrugged off French complaints about Lu's firm rhetoric against those so-called scholars.