Asia-Pacific, Europe, Headlines, Human Rights

POLITICS: EU Opening Arms to China

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Mar 24 2004 (IPS) - Moves to lift the EU arms sale embargo on China are creating differences both within the Union and between the EU and the United States.

Many European leaders are pressing for an end to the 15-year-old embargo on weapons transfers to China later this week. European heads of state will discuss the EU embargo at their annual spring summit Thursday and Friday (March 25 and 26).

The European Union (EU) and the United States imposed an embargo on arms sales to China after a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. Hundreds were killed in the massacre.

China is keen to put that episode behind. Access to European weapons technology, nearly as advanced as U.S. capabilities in some areas, would enable China’s defence industry to accelerate modernisation.

Many European leaders have indicated that the bloc is ready to lift the ban. They say China’s human rights situation has improved significantly since 1989, and that the embargo is no longer justified.

France has spearheaded the move to drop the embargo. Foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Paris in January that the embargo is "out-of-date".

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on a visit to China last week that the EU was seeking to review its weapons embargo on China "without harming bilateral ties or boosting the arms trade."

The EU wants the dispute resolved "in an orderly fashion in such a manner that the decision will contribute to bettering the relationship between the EU and China," he told reporters after meeting Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing.

Efforts to lift the embargo underscore European enthusiasm for closer ties with Beijing despite continuing criticism of China’s human rights policies and its standing threat of using force against Taiwan.

Many human rights groups say China’s human rights situation still has a long way to go before it can get any better. A new report on the death penalty in China published by Amnesty International Monday (Mar. 22) says the government "routinely abuses national laws and international standards in the course of executing thousands of people each year."

The report says the rights of individuals facing the death penalty are "violated at every stage of proceedings, including confessions obtained under torture being used as evidence against them."

EU foreign ministers should "take the issues raised in the report into account when recommending how the EU’s future relationship with China should be handled," Dick Oosting, director of Amnesty International’s EU office said in a comment on the report.

"As in previous years, its human rights dialogue with China is an excuse for the EU not to put forward a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva criticising China’s human rights record," he added.

The French-led drive to lift the embargo is fuelling tension with the United States, which believes the Chinese regime does not merit a softer approach.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appealed to the EU earlier this month to maintain the embargo because of China’s human rights record.

Officials in Washington have accused China of backsliding on human rights. They also point to perennial tensions between China and Taiwan.

A U.S. official said Monday that the United States would sponsor a resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission to criticise what it sees as China’s deteriorating human rights record.

U.S. officials had made no such move last year, but this year they said they were prompted by "backsliding" within China.

Beijing responded Tuesday with "firm objection" to the U.S. move, and decided to suspend its human rights dialogue with Washington.

John Tkacik, a leading China expert at the U.S. think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, says that the United States must do more to counter moves by the EU.

"Such a change could have grave security repercussions for the United States," he declared in a statement. "China still threatens Taiwan with war, and the United States is legally obligated to help Taiwan defend itself. This means that, in the event of U.S.-Chinese hostilities, China may well end up using advanced weaponry from European defence firms against the United States."

Reservations expressed by some EU member states, particularly Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, could mean that a decision on the embargo may be difficult.