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| WaPo: Why is Europe Eager to Sell Arms to China? |
| 2005-02-21 |
| EFL The European Union is on the verge of lifting the arms embargo it imposed on the People's Republic of China following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. If the E.U. carries out this threat -â€" and make no mistake, this would be a genuinely hostile act against the United States -- the transatlantic tiffs of recent years could come to seem minor, and Bush could be saying a final farewell to old allies rather than renewing strategic bonds. Over the past 18 months, Europeans have been asserting that the embargo, as French President Jacques Chirac told Chinese leader Hu Jintao during the latter's visit to Paris early last year, ''no longer makes any sense.'' On a return visit to Beijing last October, Chirac went further, declaring that denying China advanced arms was ''motivated purely and simply by hostility.'' German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder chimed in recently, telling Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao -- as the two signed another set of business deals -- that he, too, favored lifting the embargo. It's hard to know at this point whether the Europeans are acting like fools or knaves in this drama. Chirac makes no secret of his dream of an E.U. that acts as a ''counterweight'' to American hyperpower, and he's often able to convince Schroeder that what's good for France is also good for Germany. On its own, Europe can do very little to balance the United States, as the experience of Iraq suggests, but it can accelerate the pace at which China may emerge to play that role. But in preparing to lift the embargo, the Europeans are failing to take into account the potential blowback from the United States. Their myopia is understandable, given that the White House has said little about the consequences of arms sales to Beijing -- Rice was certainly in no mood for confrontation during her recent trip. Not to mention that the Bush administration has made plenty of sunny pronouncements about the overall state of Sino-American relations; last November, then Secretary of State Colin Powell called them "the best in 30 years." In the short term, ending the ban on trading arms to China is almost certain to undermine what transatlantic defense cooperation remains after the Cold War -- and there's still quite a bit of it. The United States would have no choice but to assume that technology transfers to Europe would be likely to end up in Chinese hands. This should especially concern the British government, which has invested more than $2 billion in the $200-billion-plus Joint Strike Fighter program. The long-term geostrategic implications are even more profound. European weapons in the hands of the PLA would help tip the balance in the Taiwan Strait against Taipei and pour fuel on smoldering Sino-Japanese relations. It's ironic that a Europe that takes pride in having extracted itself from centuries of great power rivalries could now exacerbate precisely such tensions in the Pacific. There is still time for sanity to prevail. President Bush has an opportunity this week to speak frankly about the costs and consequences of lifting the embargo. He should propose a U.S.-E.U. strategic dialogue to keep an eye on China's threat to regional security and its human rights and proliferation records. Europe, in turn, would postpone its decision on the embargo as leaders from both sides work together to grapple with China's rise. Opening such a dialogue will help preserve a translatlantic relationship based, as Rice put it, on the "values that unite us." |
| Posted by:Mrs. Davis |
| #13 Having seen Chinese manufacturing, I can say that it is much better to let the Chinese make their own military hardware, rather than letting them import top-quality foreign stuff. It's a stereotype, but my experience is that Chinese manufacturers are great at making things that are already known, and terrible at innovating new goods. You give them some plans and a target date, and they'll whip things into shape and deliver on time and on budget. But throw them into a conference room together and demand a list of new ideas...I think most of them would chuckle to themselves if they considered the idea of making a new product all by themselves. |
| Posted by: gromky 2005-02-21 9:34:04 PM |
| #12 j'accuse - I rest my case LOL |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-21 8:58:28 PM |
| #11 OK, I can't resist either: One more f'ing French a$$hole that's never gonna visit the ranch. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-02-21 8:53:07 PM |
| #10 OK, I can't resist: Let's sell nuclear arms to Iran so they wont make them themselves. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-02-21 8:48:32 PM |
| #9 OK, I just found out that Alliot-Marie gave an interview published by the Financial Times and Les Echos making her points: "Alliot-Marie argued in the interview also published in French economic daily Les Echos that the country would soon be able to develop such technology itself, regardless. "China is rapidly developing its industry, and today our experts say that in five years China could make exactly the same arms that we have today," France's first female defence minister told the British newspaper. "And they will do it if they cannot import," she said. "So maybe if we can sell them the arms, they will not make them. And in five years' time they will not have the technology to make them." I think it's not necessary to comment... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-02-21 8:45:37 PM |
| #8 typical French - he was gonna get it somewhere, why shouldn't I bend over and make some money at it...there's a word for that - whores |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-21 8:15:57 PM |
| #7 So everybody has a good reason, once again, to ignore the security concerns of the U. S. Isn't anybody over there worried about the Americans doing something stupid, like getting fed up with the Europeans? The Democrats are going to be desparate to get in the White House in '08. The Republicans will have no obvious candidate. This will be the first election since 1968 that both Parties' nomination will be up for grabs. It is not outside the realm of possibility that one could run on an anti-European isolationist platform. The good guys need to win in '06 and put a stop to this nonsense. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-21 8:15:19 PM |
| #6 OK, a few comments (some info from the Munich Security Conference where the issue was raised in private conversations): The (sort of) official Schroeder position (given by defense minister Struck) is that lifting the embargo is a largely symbolic act as the "stringent" EU rules for arms exports would kick in and China wouldn't be likely to receive high tech stuff without a (secret) nod from the U.S. anyway. (Germany would never make arms deals with China that the U.S. clearly objects to). Schroeder believes that the embargo that makes it impossible to export a single pistol "offends" the Chinese sensibilities. He believes that Germany's (non arms) business with China will improve if this issue is resolved. The German position may be only naive, the French position (given by defense minister Alliot-Marie) is not. She claims that China will be able to produce all those high tech weapons itself, so why not sell the stuff to them before and make some profit. (What she did not say of course that it suits France's idea of a multipolar world). Interestingly enough the British who have the closest collaboration with the US in weapon technology seem no longer to oppose the lifting of the embargo (for reasons closer to the German positions), but will probably want very strict control and will not agree to selling anything that could worry the U.S. One position shared by all three nations was that measures should be taken to avoid a closer military relationship between China and Russia. Mr Ivanov provided some interesting insights in that matter. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-02-21 8:00:32 PM |
| #5 Ed, ever hear of the WTO? The problem is to get them not to sell to China, not to get them to replace us in NATO with China. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-21 7:49:38 PM |
| #4 Medium-range missiles to Ivory Coast, ed? |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-02-21 7:44:11 PM |
| #3 The US has no right to to insist France and Germany not sell weapons to China. But they also have no right to sell BMWs, Airbus, cosmetics or anything else to the US. In addition, they should have no expectations that energy imports will be protected or otherwise not molested. They should have no expectations that US relations, forces and trade won't be shifted to states with a less than satisfactory history with France and Germany. Finally, France and Germany have no right to insist that the US not sell to Taiwan, or any other country threatened by Chinese expansionism, long range missiles that can reach out and touch Paris and Berlin. |
| Posted by: ed 2005-02-21 7:38:18 PM |
| #2 Fear Madam, fear. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2005-02-21 7:15:36 PM |
| #1 Whoa! This is from the Washington Post ... not the Times! I wonder what goaded them into printing this? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-21 6:33:08 PM |