|
|
|
|
Fallout from lifting the China arms
ban
By Jing-dong Yuan
The seventh European Union-China Summit
held in The Hague on December 8 again failed to
resolve the issue of the EU arms ban on China,
despite heavy pre-summit French and German
lobbying. However, in a joint statement released
at the end of the summit, "the EU side confirmed
its political will to continue to work toward
lifting the embargo. The Chinese side welcomed the
positive signal, and considered it beneficial to
the sound development of the comprehensive
strategic partnership between China and the EU."
The debates on whether and when to lift
the EU arms ban on China have been broiling over
the past year. The ban was imposed in the wake of
the 1989 Tiananmen incident where both the United
States and the EU terminated arms transfers to
China. Over the past 16 years, while the arms
embargoes originating on both sides of the
Atlantic have stayed in place, both the United
States and key EU member states such as France,
the United Kingdom and Italy have nonetheless
allowed non-lethal defense articles to be exported
to China, totaling in the millions of dollars.
Beijing has all along opposed the arms ban
and called for its dismantlement. The campaign to
have the EU embargo lifted has become more
intensive in recent years as the China-EU
relationship deepens and economic interdependence
grows. The two sides have recently established a
strategic partnership and the continuance of an
arms embargo flies in the face of that supposedly
special relationship. Indeed, "China reaffirmed
that political discrimination on this issue was
not acceptable and should be immediately removed."
While the EU-China Summit failed to
resolve the arms-ban issue, both the joint
statement and the subsequent statements by EU and
member-state officials suggest that the lifting of
the ban is no longer a question of "if" but
"when". Indeed, there is strong indication that
the EU may seek to resolve the issue in the near
future (see the accompanying article EU-China arms ban remains, for
now). Javier Solana, secretary general of
the Council of the EU and high representative for
the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, told a
French radio station that the embargo would be
lifted in the next six months.
Perhaps the
most significant development after the summit was
the change in the position of the United Kingdom,
which in the past has been cautious about the arms
ban. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw recently
told a British parliamentary select committee that
while China's human-rights problems remain, it was
wrong to put China in the same category with
Zimbabwe and Myanmar. Straw suggested that "it is
more likely than not" that the ban would be lifted
before Britain assumes the EU presidency this
July. Straw reconfirmed this commitment during his
visit to China last month.
The United
States remains strongly opposed to the EU lifting
the arms embargo, citing both China's continuing
human-rights problem and the delicate cross-strait
stability between mainland China and Taiwan that
the flow of European arms could upset. Washington
has made veiled threats that, should the arms ban
be lifted, EU member states currently enjoying
access to US technology and participating in joint
projects on weapons development may see the
curtailment of those ties and projects. The
Pentagon warned that the EU should expect "strong
reactions" from Congress should the ban be
removed.
While debates and the maneuvers
across the Atlantic are like to continue and
indeed may intensify over the next six months, it
is unlikely that the ban will stay for much
longer. France, Germany, and now the UK are all
behind the move to lift the ban, driven largely by
economic considerations but also conscious of the
incongruity between the ban and the kind of
political relationship they claim to be developing
with China.
For the EU, there will be some
arms-trade opportunities, but don't expect China
to come with large purchase orders. In addition,
the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export and EU
members' commitment to multilateral export control
regimes such as the Missile Technology Control
Regime and the Wassenaar Arrangement would limit
what they can and would sell to China. However,
the most serious implications, a consequence it
should get prepared for, are further strains
between the US and the EU, and the potential US
retaliation in response to the EU decision to lift
the embargo. EU-US relations, already tense as a
result of their strong differences over the Iraq
invasion and their different perspectives on how
best to combat terrorism and promote democracy in
the Middle East.
How Washington responds
to this eventuality could test the second Bush
administration's approaches to alliance
relationship. For the US, this would be another
instance when its traditional European allies part
company with Washington and, as a result,
trans-Atlantic relations could be further
strained. The administration of US President
George W Bush is expected to exert diplomatic
pressure on the EU to maintain the embargo. There
could also be strong congressional action
regarding European defense cooperation with the US
and European access to US defense technology and
participation in US defense projects may be
restricted or scrapped altogether. The stakes are
high. Don't expect to see the trans-Atlantic
relationship to be mended soon.
Jing-dong Yuan, PhD, is
associate professor and research director of the
East Asia Nonproliferation Program Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute
of International Studies, Monterey,
California.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette China Sex News
|
|
|
