Chinese envoy to EU denies committing to halt sanctions-busting shipments to Russia

Name: Berlin stops Chinese companies from investing in German chip makers over security concerns
Uploaded: 2023-06-16T17:44:05.000Z
Duration: 2 min 38 s
Description: Berlin stops Chinese companies from investing in German chip makers over security concerns

Beijing ‘did not commit [to] anything … that’s the bottom line’, Ambassador Fu Cong says

EU sources say commitment on re-exports was expected after Brussels dropped five Chinese entities from sanction list

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Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, speaks to the media. Photo: AFP

Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels

Published: 1:44am, 17 Jun 2023

China has not committed to stopping its companies from helping Russian military buyers breach EU sanctions, its top envoy to the bloc said on Friday.

Beijing’s Ambassador Fu Cong made the comments after European Union diplomats agreed earlier this week to provisionally remove five Chinese entities from an export restriction list.

EU sources said they made that decision following a diplomatic commitment from Fu to exert pressure on the firms to stop re-exporting banned goods to the Russian war machine.

But the diplomat told the Post and two other media outlets in an interview in Brussels that “the Chinese government did not commit [to] anything … that’s the bottom line”.

02:38

Berlin stops Chinese companies from investing in German chip makers over security concerns

“We understand the concerns of the EU in terms of trying to prevent the circumvention of the sanctions, meaning that some of the items from the European market might be re-exported to Russia and so … according to their view, that needs to be resolved,” Fu said. “We’ll see what happens in the future.”