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| Europe | ||
| EU plans to lift China arms ban by June losing momentum | ||
| 2005-04-14 | ||
| BRUSSELS - Plans to drop a European embargo on arms sales to China by June appear to be losing momentum amid concerns over recent developments in Beijing even if the EU is maintaining the timetable in the face of opposition from the US and Japan. If a decision is not taken by the end of Luxembourg's presidency of the European Union in June—an increasingly likely scenario—the issue could be left in limbo until 2006 after the end of Britain's six-month presidency of the EU starting on July 1. The future of relations with China is set to be one of the top subjects up for discussion at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers Friday and Saturday in Luxembourg. The 16-year-old embargo is not officially on the gathering's agenda and no progress is expected on the subject, especially in the absence of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is unable to attend the meeting in Luxembourg on account of an election campaign in Britain. But nevertheless, "the question (of the embargo) will be unavoidable" at the gathering, diplomats said. Despite US and Japanese opposition, the EU has until recently been moving towards lifting the arms sales ban that it slapped on China after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Led by France and Germany, European leaders asked foreign ministers last December to draft an accord on removing the embargo by the end of June. Support for its lifting has waned since China passed a controversial anti-secession law which authorizes the use of military force against Taiwan if the island moves toward formal independence. "The European Union's position remains the position (taken) by the European Council in December. It has not changed at all," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "But it's clear that there's been a series of elements, like the anti-secession law, which have had an impact. It could affect the time line," she conceded. Last month, Solana admitted that the "anti-secession law raises reservations among us".
On top of the anti-secession law, tensions between China and Japan have flared up recently in disputes over their shared wartime past and Tokyo's decision to allow drilling for gas and oil in disputed waters. "The situation now between China and Japan is not contributing" to efforts to make a decision on lifting the embargo, the diplomat said. Human rights concerns are also fueling growing European reservations about dropping the arms ban, leading the EU to implicitly link a lifting of the embargo to an improvement on this front. "A gesture from China would not hurt," a Brussels diplomat said.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #16 As i said,LH.If they need an army let'em buy thier own. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-04-14 6:52:32 PM |
| #15 Excessive credibility presents its own problems 9.88 Superior phraseology. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-04-14 5:52:09 PM |
| #14 LH: headline: EU momentum to lift China arms embargo slows comments: theyd damned well better lift it, to preserve our view of them EEVIL euros. I think you miss the point. I don't think they're evil. I think that they kind of believe that outside of Europe, we're the enemy, and are acting rationally in response to that belief, and kind of believe in Europe proper, we're their friends which is why they continue to have a formal military alliance with us. It's a weird kind of relationship that they have with us. Kind of like South Korea's. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 3:49:02 PM |
| #13 Summary: headline: EU momentum to lift China arms embargo slows comments: theyd damned well better lift it, to preserve our view of them EEVIL euros. You guys seem to have missed the fact that lifting the embargo has been controversial in Euro from day 1 - its been opposed in the european parliament, and by SOME EU states. Ergo its hardly surprising that Chinese behavior could weight the balance to some degree. Why different attitude then to Iran - well they want to invest in the Iranian oil industry, not sell arms to Iran. They have NO embargo on selling civilian products to China,or investing in China, NOR for that matter does the US. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2005-04-14 3:23:06 PM |
| #12 lex: Are the benefits of osshore balancing worth the hit to our credibility with allies? Excessive credibility presents its own problems. Friendly countries begin to starve their national defenses because they think Uncle Sam will come to the rescue, meaning that when it becomes necessary, our boys will take a lot more casualties and our treasury will take a much bigger hit from rescuing them. In essence, we become providers of military welfare. In South Korea's case, the local view has become so distorted that Uncle Sam is viewed as a colonial presence, even as they protect their domestic markets against our goods (by auditing buyers of American cars) and generally prevent US goods from entering their markets. American protection is now viewed as a free good. My response is to repudiate the US commitment to South Korea. If it wants to become Chinese territory, that's its prerogative. It might even become necessary to make an example of one of these countries to make the point that American protection requires that the country being protected make some goodwill gestures in our direction, the principal one of which is a good faith effort at self-defense. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 1:44:39 PM |
| #11 ZF's approach sounds like John Mearsheimer's "Offshore Balancer" strategy, ie scale back forward deployments and IIRC seek to offset and balance, not directly challenge, regional giants like China. It's a clear and coherent strategy-- maybe the right one long-term-- but I seriously wonder whether, in the post-Iraq War environment, our credibility and percieved reliability with emerging democratic forces esp in the middle east (and maybe with the Japanese as well) would not suffer so much as to reduce our influence greatly in the near term. Are the benefits of osshore balancing worth the hit to our credibility with allies? |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-14 1:14:46 PM |
| #10 Exactly ZF. It well past time for the US to become the ultimate triangulators. If France and Germany wish to arm an expansionist China, then the best thing we can do is rationalize our trade policy. We are running a $50 billion trade deficit with Germany. Bring the money (and 1 million direct jobs, 3M when the effects of money circulation are taken into account) back to the US. Germany's neighbors have very bad memories of it's behaviors. Time for us to make some money and open our catalog for them. Same for China and near $200 billion trade deficit. Open our goodies catalog to Japan, Taiwan, et. al. Shut down our ports for the 20% of China's GNP we import. Better to bring the money and jobs home to create a self sustaining domestic energy infrastructure or shift some of the jobs and developemt to Latin America or non-muslim Africa. No sense in funding Chinese expansionism, who we then spend more money to counter. Let China fund their expansionism with Euros. Let Germany, France and China stab each other in the back to create trade surplusses with each other. |
| Posted by: ed 2005-04-14 1:12:08 PM |
| #9 "As it happens, your friend is only mostly dead..." -- Miracle Max |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-04-14 12:44:02 PM |
| #8 AP: These are very dangerous times, folks. They are dangerous to us only if we keep our security commitments overseas. If we back away from them (except for Iraq and Afghanistan), they are dangerous times for somebody else, but not for Uncle Sam. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are big boys. It's time they learned to take care of themselves. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 12:34:46 PM |
| #7 The EU has had no compunction about trading with Saddam during the great UN Decade Sanctions. After all, why not stick it to the US? It's trendy, fashionable, and the US, with its power and might, serves well as an entity to project all ones dark thoughts upon. The EU will sell itself out to the Chicoms. Tianamen Square was 16 years ago. To the EU, no big deal, time to move on. The problem is that the EU can't be trusted not to sell out to the Chicoms, a serious potential enemy, so they cannot be trusted not to sell out NATO. Mmurray821 is correct. NATO is already dead. These are very dangerous times, folks. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-04-14 11:43:01 AM |
| #6 lex: Agree that EU will lift it. With unemployment at 5 million, Schroeder's desperate to find new markets for exports. Without these, he's finished politically. Ditto to a lesser extent for Chirac, who's also in deep trouble politically. So long as German domestic demand remains anemic, only exports will lift Germany above 0-0.5% economic growth this year and next. Actually, I think it's conviction-driven, not interest-driven. They really believe all that crock about Uncle Sam being responsible for the actions of the nations it was allied with during the Cold War, and are looking to balance American power by strengthening its enemies. They are doing what the Arabs did for decades by supporting terrorists on the side against Uncle Sam. This is the ancient tactic of setting one barbarian against another, weakening them both in the process.* We could counter it by deciding that a nuclear Iran is not a problem, by exporting US weaponry to China and deciding that international quarrels not directly involving Uncle Sam are not our problem. Everyone else would be scared stiff, but we'd be OK. The EU in particular would be in deep doo-doo when China starts expanding its territory in Asia, given that the EU is heavily dependent on exports, and wars in the region are likely to depress demand for EU exports. * If you take a good, honest look at WWI and WWII, you will probably find that Uncle Sam was right to hold off until the last minute - the European powers brought it upon themselves by ignoring the German threat, while stabbing each other in the back. With the exception of Canada, the US was the only power not under threat of complete military conquest (for geographical reasons) to participate in the war. Apart from the Russians, our boys took the most casualties despite having no territory at stake. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 11:22:28 AM |
| #5 NATO is already dead. Everyone is ignoring the fact and posing the body like "Weekend and Bernie's" to get what they want. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-04-14 11:17:20 AM |
| #4 End of NATO. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-14 10:56:17 AM |
| #3 Agree that EU will lift it. With unemployment at 5 million, Schroeder's desperate to find new markets for exports. Without these, he's finished politically. Ditto to a lesser extent for Chirac, who's also in deep trouble politically. So long as German domestic demand remains anemic, only exports will lift Germany above 0-0.5% economic growth this year and next. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-14 10:01:06 AM |
| #2 My prediction is that the EU is going to lift the embargo. If it will do business with Iran, which is right next to much of the world's oil supplies and just a few time zones away, it will do business with China, which is on the other side of the world. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 9:55:25 AM |
| #1 Big E(U)go, little mind. |
| Posted by: Dennis Kucinich 2005-04-14 6:03:15 AM |