The Bush administration has quietly lodged a series of formal
protests with the European Union and its members in an attempt to
persuade the body not to lift its 14-year ban on weapons trade with
China, the Washington Post reported.
According to the report, diplomats from several European
countries confirmed the news.
Earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang
Qiyue said the EU arms embargo on China was a product of the Cold
War era and should be lifted.
The embargo hampered cooperation between China and EU members,
said Zhang.
In a meeting on Monday, the EU's council of foreign ministers
assigned two high-level committees to conduct a review on the
embargo.
A unanimous decision by the council is necessary to lift the
embargo. With France and Germany having already sided with China.
the Dutch government announced Friday it favored ending the
embargo, in a sign of the growing consensus.
French President Jacques Chirac told his Chinese counterpart
President Hu Jintao in Paris on Tuesday that the 15-year-long
embargo, slapped on China after 1989 "makes no more sense today."
Chirac said he hoped the ban on Beijing would be scrapped "in the
coming months".
However, the United States, which imposed a similar ban in 1989,
said it opposed the lifting of the ban, and told Europe that ending
the embargo would send the wrong signal to the Chinese government,
said the Washington Post report.?
"We believe that the U.S. and European prohibitions on arms
sales are complementary, were imposed for the same reasons,
specifically serious human rights abuses, and that those reasons
remain valid today," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
told reporters this week.
U.S. officials have also argued that the transfer of European
military technology to China could pose a threat to US security,
European diplomats said.
The diplomats added though China still have some human rights
problems, many European governments believe it has made enough
progress that it no longer belongs with the other nations under the
EU arms embargo.
The EU is China's third-largest trade partner. In a strategy
paper released in October, China said it expected the EU to become
its leading trade partner and largest source of foreign investment
within five years.
No decision is expected from the EU until at least April.
(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2004)