Lu Shaye

Lu Shaye (born October 1964) is a Chinese diplomat currently serving as Chinese Ambassador to France and Monaco. Lu is popularly referred to as a leading advocate of "wolf-warrior diplomacy", which he has promoted.

Early life
Lu was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu, in October 1964. He attended the Nanjing Foreign Language School, where he learnt to speak French and English. In 1982, he went to the China Foreign Affairs University.

Diplomatic career
After completing his university studies, he was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1988, he was a staff and attendant of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Guinea. In 1999, he was appointed counsellor of the Africa Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was promoted to Deputy Director-General in 2003 and Director-General in 2009. In 2001, he served as counsellor of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in France.

Ambassador to Senegal (2006–2009)
In 2006, he was Chinese Ambassador to Senegal, a position he held until 2009.

Vice Mayor of Wuhan (2014–2015)
In July 2014, he became vice mayor of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.

Policy research at Foreign Affairs (2015–2017)
On July 22, 2015, he was appointed director of the Bureau of Policy Research, Office of the Leading Group of Foreign Affairs of the Central Committee.

Ambassador to Canada (2017–2019)
In February 2017, he succeeded Luo Zhaohui as Chinese Ambassador to Canada, and served until June 2019.

Ambassador to France and Monaco (2019–present)
In August 2019 Lu was appointed Chinese Ambassador to France and Chinese Ambassador to Monaco.

Lu is proud of his reputation as a wolf-warrior diplomat, and argues that the rise of wolf-warrior diplomacy reflects the rising national strength of China and its relation to the changing international environment.

In August 2022, after Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, Lu said that the people of Taiwan had been brainwashed by pro-independence ideas saying, "I'm sure that as long as they are re-educated, the Taiwanese public will once again become patriots".

In December 2022, Lu said of the 2022 COVID-19 protests in China that, "Foreign forces came into play already on the second day".

He was appointed as a member of the 14th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on 17 January 2023 from the Friendship with Foreign Countries Sector.

On 22 April 2023 in a televised interview with Darius Rochebin, Lu stated that former Soviet countries "have no effective status in international law". When asked whether he thought Crimea belonged to Ukraine, Lu said, "it depends on how you perceive the problem", adding that "it's not that simple" and that Crimea was "Russian at the beginning", without specifying what he meant by beginning. His words struck a chord with Lula the president of Brazil who said essentially the same thing during the same week. Lu’s intervention on Crimea prompted a response from Ukraine's ambassador to France Vadym Omelchenko who suggested raising the question "who owns Vladivostok?" with the Chinese ambassador next time. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs issued a response on Twitter stating that Lu's remarks were "completely unacceptable", and demanded an "explanation from the Chinese side and [a] complete retraction of this statement". He also further stated that Latvia, along with Lithuania and Estonia, would summon respective high ranking Chinese diplomats in their capitals to provide explanation regarding Lu's remarks. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova protested these declarations as well. About 80 European lawmakers called that "wolf-warrior activity at its worst" and asked the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs to declare Lu persona non grata in France immediately. The transcript of Lu's interview, which was initially published in both Chinese and French on the Chinese embassy to France's official WeChat account, was deleted and the transcript was not published on the embassy's website. Following the diplomatic outrage over Lu's remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, at a regular press conference in Beijing, stated that China "respects the status of the member states as sovereign states after the collapse of the Soviet Union".

Personal life
Lu married Wang Liwen ; the couple has a son.