We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
FOREIGN EMBASSIES IN Beijing have been asked by the Chinese government to avoid displaying “propaganda” in an apparent response to shows of support for Ukraine.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government says it is neutral in Moscow’s 15-month-old invasion of Ukraine but has repeated Russian justifications for the attack, accusing the US and Nato of provoking Moscow.
Beijing was due to send an envoy this week to Ukraine and Russia to discuss a possible “political settlement”, but the effort is thought unlikely to make progress given China’s rhetorical, diplomatic and economic support for Moscow.
A spokesperson for the European Union said the protocol department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry circulated a note on 8 May to all diplomatic missions to the effect that they should “respect Chinese laws and regulations” and “not to use the external walls of embassies to carry out politicised propaganda to avoid causing disputes between countries”.
The note does not specify what might constitute “politicised propaganda”, nor communicates further on the matter, said the spokesperson, Nabila Massrali, adding that the EU Delegation in Beijing “has not changed any items displayed at its front wall”.
Another European diplomat, who asked not to be identified further due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed Massrali’s account, saying embassies had been asked by the foreign ministry not to use their outer walls for “political propaganda”.
He also said his government does not “see any reason to change” its display.
The verbal request did not mention Ukraine, according to the diplomats, but flags and placards set up by embassies of Canada, France, Germany and other governments are the only public displays by most foreign missions other than tourism advertisements.
A two-metre tall placard at the front gate of the Finnish Embassy has the flags of Finland and Ukraine and says “#WeStandWithUkraine”.
A billboard hung on Sweden’s Embassy has the same phrase and flags of the two countries.
Some embassies also raised rainbow flags for diversity week and Wednesday’s International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Such issues are considered highly politically sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party.
Asked for confirmation and details, a foreign ministry spokesperson said embassies were obliged to “respect Chinese laws and regulations”.
“China calls on embassies of all countries in China and representative offices of international organisations in China to perform their duties in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations or relevant international agreements,” said the spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, without giving further details.
The Chinese government said earlier it was sending an envoy this week to Ukraine, Russia and other European countries to discuss a possible “political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis”.
Political analysts say there is little chance of progress toward peace because neither side appears to be ready to stop fighting.
But they say Mr Xi’s government might be trying to deflect criticism of its friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin and split European allies away from Washington.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
The embassies are legally the terrority of the countries they belong to, so China can huff and puff but unless they order the closure of those embassies and the expulsion of diplomats then they can’t do a thing.
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: I’d agree, but the statement refer to the external walls. If these are external walls of a building within a compound that yes, territory of the embassies country, but if they are the external walls of the compound, or if the embassy is just a building on the street, are the external walls embassy territory or Chinese territory? Perhaps someone could clarify the legal standing here?
@D. Memery: Interesting thing fir me is how long the Ukrainian flag is up? just day or two? Short time? I doubt it, the war is over a year already, so it should be long time. did Chinese gov ask them to take down when they put it up? Why asking them now when China sent a diploma to EU for peace negotiation? Well, is that interesting no one thought about it? Is that interesting the media don’t mention it? sometime when I see comments, I don’t know are people losing thinking though? just buying whatever the free media feed them?
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: the embassies are not legally the territory of the sending country. The entire territory belongs to China, but it basically implicitly agrees not to enforce its laws there. This is such a common and popular urban myth that embassies become little pockets of territory of the sending countries, but this is not the case.
Need to get the Chinese embassies to get rid of their illegal police stations.
Well, if they think they can decorate our streets with illegal Chinese police stations I don’t see the harm of decorating the sovereign territory of embassies in Beijing with a few Ukrainian flags.
Laughter in said embassies followed.
When the chinese gov sent top diplomat to poland, France, Ukraine, Germany and Russia to negotiate the peace/ceasefire that is not big news, but “asking took down the Ukrainian flag to show respect its neutral position in the war” is took a entire article. It’s way bigger than the news of “peace talk”. how propaganda works? Definitely it’s “not” like this. By the way, some people saying china supports Russia, I can tell you if China really supports Russia, the war would be finished half year ago. Some people think the world only black and white
@Ní neart go cur le chéile.: you mean the second best army in the world needs to be rescued by the chinese . how embarassing for the russians
@Rian Lynch: yes! It is, Russian army is laughable, we used to admire the Russian army, the weapon… look at them now. If they are against nato, yep, the war will finish with in few week if no nuke
China is well aware what this war is all about…and wish not to see the false support of Ukraine…I would not either as its sickening because all these countries establishments are profiting off of the human sacrifices they’ve made out of the Ukrainian people for this proxy war o’ economy….
@William slevin: the Russians are the ones killing Ukrainians while Ukraine tries to defend itself.
Ukrainian economic migrants have travelled through 5/6 safe countries to get here. The huge majority of Ukrainians in Ireland are taking advantage of the war to gain access to the EU and countries like Ireland. They return home to Ukraine regularly for weddings and family occasions, they consider us incredibly naive and gullible. These people are a huge burden on our economy and costing us billions while our own suffer. It has to stop, enough is enough. Ukrainians in Ireland are not refugees and our government knows it
It is great to see a superpower such as China seeking peaceful resolution of international conflicts.
@Nestor: and what about Taiwan?
@Joe x: peaceful reunification was talked for many years, it was ok when former gov was in power, business were good, political were ok, but because the taiwan current gov has gone too far for last 7 years and US is on the side to “help” one china policy a lots, the mainland has to change its policy, we wish peaceful, but not giving up force if it is necessary.
@Joe x: One can mention Taiwan but not a nation in the Middle East that has been oppressing and killing a minority group in their nation for decades.
Both I and another person mentioned that Ireland too might hang out a flag of another occupied and oppressed group of people at their embassy in that country, and our comments were removed.
Is the Journal saying that it is ok to only mention and support only one nation that is being attacked? The now unmentionable nation has even been condemned numerous times by the UN, and continues to oppress the minority population, but we are not allowed to mention that nation.
Can an embassy not hang out 2 flags out of protest? Hypocrisy at its best.
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
Non-TCF/GVL Vendors
have your say