At their meeting in Luxemburg on Oct. 11-12, the EU foreign ministers decided to maintain -- for the time being -- the EU arms embargo against China. According to press reports, the EU will review its policy on the basis of three criteria: China's human rights record, tension with Taiwan and the as yet incomplete EU code of conduct on arms exports.
The Beijing authorities have argued that the arms ban is outdated and "a product of the Cold War."
French President Jacques Chirac has echoed this, and has become the EU's strongest advocate for lifting the embargo, no doubt driven by the prospects of lucrative orders for France's military industry. Reportedly, France's enthusiasm is also prompted by the desire to get China's support to have the the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor built at Cadarache, near Tarragone in the south of France.
The fact is, however, that the embargo had nothing to do with the Cold War, but was imposed after China's military crackdown in 1989 on peaceful demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. Since then, China's human rights abuses have continued unabated, and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have documented that China's human rights record has in effect deteriorated over the past 15 years.
Lifting the embargo under these circumstances would send a distinctly wrong signal to China. The EU should let China know that improvement of human rights is a condition sine qua non for enhancing relations with Europe.
Just as important is stability in the Taiwan Strait: lifting the ban will have far-reaching implications for peace and security in Southeast Asia. It will upset the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and cause instability in the region.
China itself is the major source of that instability in the Strait. Until now, the EU has hardly given any attention or thought to resolving the issue. Time has come for the EU to join forces with the US in convincing China that Beijing's policies toward Taiwan are an outdated remnant of the Chinese Civil War.
In his Oct. 10 National Day Speech, President Chen Shui-bian (
The EU thus needs to help convince Beijing that Taiwan is not the "arch-enemy" from the days of Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), but that -- after 38 years of martial law -- the Taiwanese people have made an impressive transition to democracy, and strive to live in peace with all their neighbors, including China.
Instead of considering the sale of arms to China, the EU should end its policy of isolating a democratic Taiwan, and work toward normalizing relations with Taipei. Such a policy is based on the basic principles of democracy and the right to self-determination as laid down in the UN Charter. Europe prides itself on its long history of democracy, from the British Magna Charta to the French Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.
Selling arms to a repressive, communist China so it can threaten a newly free and democratic Taiwan would be a violation of the basic principles we Europeans hold dear. The EU should not let Taiwan remain an orphan, but help make it a full and equal member of the international community.
Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, a publication based in Washington.
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