Senior Chinese and EU officials held talks as the EU considers lifting a 15-year arms embargo banning European companies from seeking contracts with the Chinese military.
EU officials said Zhang Yesui, China's vice-foreign minister in charge of relations with western Europe, raised the embargo with EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten at the start of two days of talks in Brussels.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Zhang told the EU that the embargo was "inappropriate" to China's current relations with the 15-nation bloc.
Pushed by France and Germany, EU leaders are widely expected to lift the arms embargo at a March 25-26 summit in Brussels, although some EU member nations have expressed concerns over human rights in China and its policy toward Taiwan.
Patten told Zhang more assurances from Beijing on human rights would make it easier for EU governments to explain any decision to lift the embargo, the EU official said.
The arms ban was introduced after China's clampdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989. Several European governments now want it lifted as a sign of improving relations and to let their companies compete for a slice of China's military budget.
China does not publicize its spending on weapons, research and development and other costs. The US Defense Department puts actual outlays at up to four times public figures. Last year's announced military budget was US$22.4 billion.
Beijing on Saturday announced a 11.6 percent -- or $2.6 billion -- rise in military spending for this year.
Patten has a record of outspoken criticism of China's human rights, but has recently recognized progress there.
EU officials also said the bloc had assured Zhang of its continuing support for the "one China" principle regarding Taiwan and its opposition to formal moves toward independence by the island.
They said China had asked for assurances that the EU's policy will not be changed by a referendum scheduled for March 20 in Taiwan on whether it should beef up its defenses if China refuses to redeploy missiles.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
RSS