EU Likely to Delay End of Arms Embargo Against China
By: Administrative Account | Source: Bloomberg
April 16, 2005 6:00AM EST

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union is likely to miss its end-June deadline for lifting a 16-year-old arms embargo against China because of concerns about the nation's human-rights record and the region's stability, EU officials said, signaling a policy shift that would be a U.S. victory and a French defeat. ``I can hardly imagine that there will be an early lifting of the sanctions,'' External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told journalists at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The U.S. is fighting a French-led drive to end the European export curbs, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators. The main American allies in Europe on the issue are Britain and Scandinavian countries. Lifting the embargo would give European weapons makers including European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co. access to growing demand from China's military. Chinese arms purchases tripled between 1999 and 2003, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. EU leaders in December set a mid-2005 target date for ending the ban. Support for resuming EU arms sales has faded over the past two months after the U.S. warned against upsetting the East Asian strategic balance and China passed a law threatening to react with military force to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan. German Doubts French President Jacques Chirac's main ally in seeking to lift the embargo, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, yesterday failed to quell a rebellion against the proposal in his Social Democratic party and among his Green coalition allies. The top Green in the coalition, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, today said China must improve the treatment of political dissidents and pledge to use the diplomatic track to resolve disputes with Taiwan. Ending the embargo ``depends on when we reach a consensus, and that depends on movement on the Beijing side, above all on human rights and peaceful conflict resolution,'' Fischer said. ``We shouldn't speculate about the timing. Things will need time.'' As a sign of growing popular sentiment in the 25-nation EU, the European Parliament yesterday called for the weapons curbs to remain in place in a non-binding resolution that passed by 431 votes to 85 with 31 abstentions. Lawmakers' Concerns The parliament cited China's treatment of dissidents, its anti-secession law last month aimed at Taiwan and the need for better EU-U.S. ties, which suffered when France and Germany spearheaded European opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Chirac and Schroeder say the embargo against the world's fastest-growing major economy and most populous nation is out of step with the times. Their arguments are echoed by the Chinese government, which has called the restrictions ``political discrimination'' and ``inappropriate.'' Lifting the embargo ``has a political dimension,'' French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told reporters. ``It's not about increasing arms exports.'' The Luxembourg government, current holder of the EU's six- month rotating presidency, isn't sure whether the bloc will find the unanimity needed to repeal the embargo by the end of June, Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said. ``We have to work to find this consensus,'' he told journalists. Dropping the arms restrictions ``doesn't come at any price. There are conditions that must be fulfilled.'' Prisoners China must ratify a 1966 United Nations human-rights agreement and release political prisoners, Ferrero-Waldner said. ``The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should be ratified,'' she said. ``Other important things should be done on the human-rights question, for instance, also releasing prisoners that are still there from Tiananmen Square.'' For its part, the EU must complete a ``code of conduct'' on arms exports before lifting the embargo. An accord on the new rules, meant to prevent sensitive military equipment from falling into Chinese hands in a post-embargo era, is being held up partly by divisions over how binding the regulations should be, Fischer said. European governments plan to send their chief foreign-policy representative, Javier Solana, to the U.S. in early May to discuss American concerns about a lifting of the embargo. The U.S. government is concerned that European weapons might one day be used against American soldiers, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said April 5 in Brussels. U.S. lawmakers might react to the lifting of the embargo by countering Department of Defense efforts to allow more foreign bidding for weapons contracts, he added. Denis MacShane, the European affairs minister for the U.K., which will hold the EU's presidency in the second half of 2005, indicated the arms embargo could stay until at least next year. ``The examination process'' for ending the ban ``will continue for some time,'' he told reporters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Luxembourg at jstearns2@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Catherine Hickley at chickley@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: April 15, 2005 12:59 EDT