China’s Ambassador To France Taught The West A Lesson About The “Rules-Based Order”
Ambassador Lu was arguably tasked with sending the West a message on a “plausibly deniable” basis about how the “rules-based order” concept feels whenever it’s applied to imply an impending unilateral revision of the status quo with respect to their interests.
The “rules-based order” concept is sold by the West as upholding the UN-enshrined system, but it’s really about the arbitrary implementation of double standards designed to advance America’s interests. Certain objective observations are exploited in pursuit of manipulating perceptions about a given issue, which is intended to precondition the targeted audience to support a unilateral change to the status quo that always in one way or another serves the US’ interests.
For instance, the observation that the Communist Party of China (CPC) hasn’t ever controlled Taiwan is exploited to extend credence to the latter’s tacit separatist agenda, which is in turn spun in order to justify the West comprehensively expanding its relations with that island. Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye just taught the West a lesson about how this feels after sharing his thoughts on the legal status of former Soviet Republics.
In his personal view, “Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries.” He also referenced Crimea’s original legal status as part of the USSR’s Russian constituent prior to it being gifted by former Soviet leader Khruschev to Ukraine. Since Ambassador Lu shared these thoughts during a TV interview, it was assumed by many that he was officially reflecting a new Chinese position.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning clarified her country’s stance on Monday in response to a related question from TASS:
“After the demise of the Soviet Union, China was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the [newly created] countries. Since the inception of diplomatic relations, China has always adhered to the principle of mutual respect and equal treatment while fostering bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation. China respects the sovereign status of the republics that were founded after the Soviet Union disintegrated.”
As can be seen, there exists no change in China’s position, thus meaning that Ambassador Lu was indeed speaking in a personal capacity.
Nevertheless, he didn’t explicitly say so when sharing his thoughts on this subject, though it’s unlikely that this was a faux pas from the man whose civilization-state has literally millennia worth of diplomatic experience. Rather, it was almost certainly the case that he was tasked with indirectly sending them a message on a “plausibly deniable” basis about how the “rules-based order” concept feels whenever it’s applied to imply an impending unilateral revision of the status quo with respect to Western interests.
South China Morning Post columnist Alex Lo compellingly explained this in his piece about how “China’s questioning sovereignty of post-Soviet states is tit-for-tat over Taiwan”. Basically, Beijing finally got fed up the West flirting with tacit Taiwanese separatism, hence why it had one of its most prominent diplomats in that de facto New Cold War bloc make a tit-for-tat comment in the way that Ambassador Lu did. By doing so, China taught the West a lesson that it’ll never forget even if they don’t ultimately learn from it.
If regional military developments take a decisively negative turn against Russia, however, then China might feel forced to arm its strategic partner as a last resort to ensure its national security interests. In that case, the “plausibly deniable” basis upon which China just made its point about the “rules-based order” could be returned to, albeit as a more official position in that case. The chances of events unfolding in that direction remain low, but this scenario adds further context to the examined incident.