Renewing EU weapons sales to Beijing regime – a disarming gesture?

Date: 07/10/04

Two MEPs present their views on what is likely to be the upcoming ASEM summit's most keenly debated issue.

China has changed, but not enough. The ban must stay, says Graham Watson

ON THE fringes of the ASEM meeting in Hanoi this week the Chinese will be taking the opportunity to lobby their European counterparts to lift the EU's ban on selling weapons to China. With the country in a state of rapid change, some, not least the Chinese themselves, have begun to argue that Europe's ban on selling weapons to the People's Republic is a Cold War relic and should be lifted. The European Commission has suggested that it sees an end to the ban in the near future, and has advocated bringing China into the Galileo global positioning system to ensure that it would shop in Europe when it shopped for weapons that interface with satellite technology.

The European arms lobby has no trouble recognizing the path of least- ethical resistance. French President Jacques Chirac, who hates to stand in the way of a Frenchman with a Mirage jet to sell, has found an ally in Gerhard Schröder, who would like to see Germany selling stealth submarines to the modernization-hungry Chinese military. At the December EU summit last year, Chirac also managed to convince UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that a review of the ban was necessary, much to the intense irritation of Blair's friends in Washington, which has its own ban on selling arms to China. Chirac in particular has managed to give the call for lifting the ban considerable momentum, despite the resistance of the Swedes, the Danes and the Dutch. In December, the European Council will decide on the future of the ban and somebody has definitely given the Chinese the impression that they will get their way.

It is easy to paint the issue of arms sales to China as a commercial one. It is a huge market for things that Europe is very good at making. With Europe and the United States keeping their distance, the Russians are taking advantage of our reticence. But the logic of the ban is ethical and the ethics matter. The ban was not simply a piece of Cold War realpolitik but a response to the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989. It has been a standing measure of Europe's dissatisfaction with political repression in China ever since.

China has changed, but not enough. Behind the face of massive economic transformation is an unyielding dictatorship that still holds many of the protestors from Tiananmen Square in prison and intimidates and imprisons those who have called for an independent inquiry into the massacre.

EU ministers affect to care about advancing democratization in Asia; they made enough of a fuss about the participation of Burma in this week's ASEM meeting. Yet on China they continue to look the other way too much of the time. Lifting the ban on arms sales would raise such double standards to the level of farce. We don't advance the cause of democracy in Asia by selling guns to the government that may use them to suppress Chinese democracy. We don't encourage democrats in Hong Kong and Taiwan by selling weapons to the same Red Army that put on a show of intimidatory force in the province in the weeks before Hong Kong's democratic elections last month, and which mounted the largest military operation in the Taiwan Straits in two decades and threatened the invasion of Taiwan if lawmakers on the island continued to consider separation from China.

Should the tools of this intimidation be made in Europe? The absurd Cold War logic that says that we can sell weapons to China because they are no longer likely to be used against us entirely misses the point. China routinely threatens to use them against our friends. Until this changes, Europe's position should be unequivocal. One hopes that, if confronted over the tea-trolley in Hanoi, EU's foreign ministers will be that frank.

• UK Liberal MEP Graham Watson is chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament.

A relaxing of the embargo, rather than its complete removal, is the answer, argues Jiri Mastálka

THE international picture - and the internal situation in China - have changed drastically since the EU arms embargo was imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Improvements in human rights in China have been recognized by many eminent figures. Last year, for example, ambassadors to Beijing from Australia, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Mexico noted that the Chinese government has made great strides in recent years to boost religious freedom, the rights of women and the rule of law throughout the country, as well as promoting social and economic rights. Although there is serious poverty in China, the authorities have been striving to improve the lot of its people. There has been a concerted effort to improve education; with some estimates indicating that the national illiteracy rate has dropped to around 5%.

In addition, the Chinese authorities have started publishing annual reports on the human rights situation in the country as well as entering into dialogue with the EU on sensitive issues, such as the death penalty and treatment of minorities.

Furthermore, Jiang Zemin used his presidency to show a greater willingness to address international issues. China has been actively involved in the 'Five-Party Talks' over North Korea. This has even been recognized by the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has praised China for the way it has used its leverage with Pyongyang to try and thwart the latter's nuclear ambitions.

China has also become involved in the international fight against terrorism since the 11 September 2001 attacks. Nor has China been immune to terrorist incidents on its own soil. Uighur separatists in the north-western region of Xinjiang carried out around 200 attacks in 1990-2001.

This factor particularly needs to be considered when the future of the EU arms embargo is discussed. Like all countries, China has a legitimate right to self-defence.

I am not arguing for a complete opening up of EU arms sales to China. As a deputy with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), I have to emphasize that our party has been campaigning for the production and sale of weapons to be subject to more stringent controls and restrictions.

But we need to take into account that the arms embargo has had few concrete results. Take the case of the Czech-manufactured Vera system, a highly-effective air-surveillance radar that has been designed for the detection of stealth aircraft.

The Czech Republic had originally hoped to sell six of these systems to China. But under strong diplomatic pressure from the US administration, the deal has been called off. Visiting Prague last month, the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced that the US has bought one of these systems. It appears that the Americans decided to do this in order to intercept their potential delivery to China.

But has the cancellation of this deal stopped China from acquiring radar systems? No. The Chinese have simply bought them from another producer.

My view is that Europe must approach the surrounding issues cautiously. There is a situation of asymmetry when the US dictates to other countries how they should take care of their own defence. I am sure the Americans would not react kindly if Beijing was to instruct the Bush administration how to handle national security.

As well as looking at the arms embargo on China, the question of the EU's code of conduct on weapons sales needs to be addressed. We need to see how it can be made tougher so that the controls on the production and sale of arms are enhanced.

• Czech left-wing MEP Jiri Mastálka is a member of the EU-China joint Parliamentary committee.

Two MEPs present their views on the EU's weapons embargo on China.