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Tiananmen aside, EU readies to lift
arms ban
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - The new Chinese leadership is
set to get a major boost to its legitimacy and
military ambitions as British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw has confirmed in Beijing that the
European Union is ready to lift its 15-year-old
ban on arms sales to China imposed after the
Tiananmen Square massacre.
Straw, who is
scheduled to hold meetings with Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing,
arrived in China on Thursday as Chinese leaders
were making plans, under the shroud of secrecy,
for the funeral of deposed Communist Party leader
Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for opposing the
military assault on unarmed students during the
1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests.
Beijing, which fears that Zhao's funeral
could trigger anti-government protests and revive
demands for the rehabilitation of student
democracy leaders, is preparing a tightly scripted
funeral for the deposed leader to prevent a public
show of support for his democratic cause.
State television and radio have kept mum
over Zhao's death, which took place in a Beijing
hospital on Monday, while Chinese newspapers ran a
50-word report on their inside pages.
A
massive show of public grief for the 85-year-old
deceased leader who opposed the Tiananmen massacre
could become an embarrassing event for Chinese
leaders. The Chinese government claims the arms
embargo imposed after the military crackdown is a
"product of the Cold War", but displays of public
dissent could indicate the opposite.
The
United Kingdom is the latest European country to
join the efforts of France and Germany to persuade
other EU members to lift the arms sanctions. Straw
said last week that he expected the arms ban to be
lifted "more likely than not" in the next six
months while Luxembourg holds the EU presidency.
The UK will take over the presidency from
Luxembourg in the second half of the year.
In the meantime, the United States has
waged an intense behind-the-scenes battle to
dissuade the EU from lifting the ban. The White
House has warned Britain that it would not
tolerate the prospect of European military
technology being used to threaten US soldiers in
their missions in the Far East.
Washington
remains unconvinced that Beijing has made enough
progress on human-rights issues and cites
widespread imprisonment and torture of political
and religious dissidents. In a report released
this month, New York-based Human Rights Watch said
that despite some progress in recent years, China
remains a "highly repressive state".
More
significant, Washington is worried about the
possibility of China fulfilling its potential to
become a military superpower by purchasing
state-of-the-art equipment and technology, which
could be used in a forceful campaign to reunify
Taiwan with the mainland.
Under the Taiwan
Relations Act, the United States is obliged to
defend the island if China attacks. In March,
China's legislators plan to debate a new
"anti-secession law" that would legitimize the use
of military force against the democratically ruled
island.
Beijing claims the arms embargo
imposed after the 1989 military crackdown is
anachronistic and does not tally with the
blossoming relations between China and the
European Union.
Foreign Ministry spokesman
Kong Quan dismissed concerns that dropping the
embargo would lead to a sharp increase in arms
purchases by China. "Lifting the embargo will
certainly not lead to massive imports of weapons
because China adheres to a defensive principle in
national defense," Kong told a regular press
briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
However,
data released last month indicated that the
European Union almost doubled its arms sales to
China between 2002 and 2003. According to
information in the EU's official journal in
December, France granted 171 million euros (US$221
million) of licenses for arms sales to China in
2003, Italy 127 million euros and the UK 112
million euros - figures well above the previous
year's tallies.
In statements made before
his trip to China, Straw tried to allay fears by
announcing that Britain will push for a revised EU
code of conduct on arms exports coupled with a set
of measures to exchange information on weapons
sales. This, he said, would mean that arms
controls on China would remain as tight as they
were under the embargo.
"The replacement
regime would be stronger than the embargo because
it has the force of law, and we are going to
strengthen it by ensuring that there is
transparency among EU partners ... not just on
denials but also approvals," Straw was quoted as
saying last week.
But the United States is
deeply skeptical of such assurances.
This
month the administration of US President George W
Bush imposed penalties against some of China's
largest companies for aiding Iran's efforts to
improve its ballistic missiles. US officials found
Chinese companies guilty despite repeated vows by
Beijing to curb its sales of missile technology.
The United States is not the only country
with strategic concerns about the lifting of the
embargo. Japan, too, is nervous.
Before
Straw arrived in Beijing, his counterpart in
Tokyo, Nobutaka Machimira, told him Japan is
firmly opposed to the controversial move. Apart
from watching Beijing's military ambitions
nervously, Tokyo is worried that a confrontation
between the United States and China over Taiwan
would certainly draw Japan into the conflict.
(Inter Press Service) |
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