Factbox: Lu Shaye: Chinese envoy who questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty no stranger to controversy

On Monday, Beijing distanced itself from China’s ambassador to France’s statements doubting the sovereignty of former Soviet republics like Ukraine.

Since arriving in Paris in 2019, Lu Shaye, 58, a leading practitioner of China’s harsh “wolf warrior” diplomacy, has courted controversy.

Here are his most controversial moments.

Lu told French television on Friday that former Soviet Union countries “don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status.”

His remarks attracted criticism from the area and cast doubt on China’s past appeals to respect national sovereignty to end the Ukraine war begun by its close ally Russia.

The Chinese embassy’s WeChat account deleted Lu’s transcript. The embassy did not comment.

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing respects the former Soviet countries’ sovereignty.

In December 2022, Lu informed journalists in Paris that unnamed foreign forces “took advantage of” historic rallies against China’s rigorous COVID-19 rules.

Last November, President Xi Jinping’s decade-long rule saw unprecedented protests in many cities. Sources told Reuters they helped eliminate three years of limitations.

In August 2022, Lu commented on China’s longstanding irritant, democratic Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

Lu stated Taiwanese people were misled by independence notions and may become patriotic after being “re-educated”.

His comment echoed China’s description of its Xinjiang educational centers for ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

The UN calls these camps “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” and possible crimes against humanity. China strongly denies that.

The French foreign ministry summoned Lu for an article on the Chinese embassy’s website in April 2020, months after COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan, central China.

An unidentified Chinese ambassador claimed that French elderly home residents were starved and diseased as COVID-19 spread.

Beijing slammed western nations for failing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.