The Chinese Embassy in France has removed the transcript of a controversial interview in which the Chinese ambassador questioned the independence of the countries of the former Soviet Union, causing outrage across Europe.
This was reported by the Bloomberg agency.
The embassy posted a full transcript of Ambassador Lu Shae's remarks in Chinese and French on its official WeChat account on Monday morning.
However, at noon Beijing time, the transcript was removed, and the links showed a message that the content had been removed by the author.
The resonant interview was also not published on the embassy's official website.
In an interview with French broadcaster LCI that aired on Friday, Lu Shae said that some "countries of the former Soviet Union" do not have the status of a sovereign state in international law.
The comments angered Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which said they would summon Chinese diplomats to their capitals for an explanation. High-ranking EU diplomat Josep Borrell called this statement "unacceptable".
Ambassador of Ukraine to France Vadym Omelchenko sharply reacted to the statements of the Chinese diplomat.
After a wave of outrage, a spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry said Monday that China respects the status of former Soviet republics as sovereign countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
