Chinese Ambassador to the EU Fu Cong has stressed in an interview with The New York Times that Beijing does not acknowledge Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories and does not provide military assistance for Moscow.
The conversation took place ahead of the diplomat’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who will arrive in China for a three-day visit later today.
In the interview, Fu Cong said that Beijing does not recognise Crimea as well as four other annexed regions of Ukraine as Russian and does not supply military aid to Moscow. However, China did not condemn the Kremlin’s move because its “root causes are more complicated” than the West says.
Apart from that, the ambassador said that the “no-limit friendship” between Russia and China, a notion mentioned in the countries’ joint statement issued shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine “is nothing but rhetoric”.
The Kremlin commented on the interview, saying that Moscow remains committed to the agreements signed following the recent talks between Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“We focus on the letter and spirit of the contacts that were held between President Putin and Chairman Xi recently in Moscow. The whole context of their mutual understanding is laid out in the two signed documents that were adopted following the Russia-China negotiations. They contain a lot of information and fully highlight the whole range of issues on our joint agenda,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.