The EU is unlikely to lift its 15-year-old ban on arms sales to China soon, due to disagreements among the bloc's members, the EU external relations chief said yesterday.
"I can hardly imagine an early decision," Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters on arrival for an EU foreign ministers' meeting to discuss Europe's relations with China.
The issue of lifting the embargo has drawn divisions among -- and within -- the 25 EU nations.
It has also has put trans-Atlantic ties under strain, with the US voicing concern after China adopted a law authorizing military action against Taiwan if Taipei declared independence.
Diplomatic sources suggested the embargo would remain in place at least until next year.
Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden want to retain the ban on arms sales, while Germany and France have long urged fellow EU members to lift the embargo imposed after the Chinese military crushed student protests on Tienanmen Square in 1989.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been keen to lift the ban, but misgivings have surfaced in his coalition of Social Democrats and Greens and among the conservative opposition.
On Thursday, he told the German parliament that the ban hindered Europe's efforts to boost trade with China.
"The lifting of the embargo does not have the goal of increasing arms deliveries to China. The core question is how the EU and Germany can pursue their interests toward China in the medium and long term," he said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer sounded more cautious, saying a greater Chinese commitment to human rights would help craft an EU consensus on lifting the embargo.
"I appeal to China: It can contribute a lot to making such a consensus happen," Fischer told the legislature.
On Thursday, the European Parliament entered the fray, demanding the EU arms ban remain in place because of China's shaky human rights record. In a nonbinding 431 to 85 vote, with 31 abstentions, the EU assembly meeting in Strasbourg, backed a motion by German Conservative Elmar Brok "not to lift the arms embargo."
The European Parliament called Taiwan "a model of democracy for the whole of China," and expressed regret that Europe's ties with Beijing were only progressing in terms of "trade and economic fields, without any substantial achievement as regards human rights and democracy issues."
The parliament also expressed "deepest concern [at the] large number of missiles in southern China aimed across the Taiwan Straits'' and about the recently adopted anti-secession law.
Meanwhile, a EU envoy promised Japan yesterday the group would take into account Tokyo's opposition to weapons sales to China. Annalisa Giannella, an EU troubleshooter on the embargo, met with Japanese lawmakers who voiced concerned about selling arms to China.
"I think there is an interest on both sides [Japan and the EU] to have more dialogue on strategic issues," said Giannella, who is an aide to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
"I have reiterated that the European Union does not want to modify the strategic balance in this region," she said.
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