Chinese authorities dropped a trade fair speech by the European Council president, Charles Michel, that was critical of Russia’s war in Ukraine, diplomats have said.
The recorded message by Michel was meant to be one of several from world leaders and heads of international bodies played at the opening on Friday last week of China’s International Import Expo in Shanghai. Three European diplomats said Michel’s speech, which was heavily critical of Russia’s “illegal” war in Ukraine, had been removed, according to Reuters, which first reported the incident.
“President Michel was invited to address [the] Fifth Hongqiao Forum/CIIE in Shanghai,” said Michel’s spokesperson, Barend Leyts. “As requested by the Chinese authorities, we had indeed provided a prerecorded message, which was ultimately not shown.”
Leyts told the Guardian that the European Council had received no further feedback from Chinese authorities. “We leave it up to them to explain what happened,” he said.
No one from China’s foreign ministry or the co-organisers of the expo, China’s commerce ministry and the Shanghai city government, responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.
According to the event website, expo attendees heard from China’s president, Xi Jinping; the director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva; and the head of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Also offering a video message was Belarus’s authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko spoke of “an urgent need for effective international coordination and equal and respectful partnership”, according to the conference website.
Michel’s speech was to have urged China’s leaders to use their influence to stop Russia’s “brutal” war in Ukraine.
Michel and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, delivered a similar message to Chinese leaders at an EU-China summit in April that appears to have had little impact on Beijing’s actions.
The EU’s relationship with one of its largest trading partners has grown increasingly tense, amid increasing concern about human rights in China, and Beijing’s role in the world. In March 2019 the EU labelled China a “systemic rival”, as well as an economic competitor and a negotiating partner.
