The US on Tuesday renewed calls for the EU to maintain a 15-year-old ban on arms sales to China amid signs the EU embargo may be lifted with Britain's support.
"The United States has repeatedly expressed its concerns to European Union member states regarding possible lifting of the arms embargo against China," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"In our view, lifting the ban would not contribute to regional stability and would send the wrong signal to China regarding its continued poor human rights record," he said.
Boucher's comments came in a written answer to a question posed at Tuesday's State Department news briefing about a report that Britain, Washington's top European ally, would likely back an anticipated EU move to drop the embargo.
Britain is expected to line up alongside France and Germany in arguing that the restrictions, imposed after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Bei-jing's Tiananmen Square, should be ended, the Times reported on Tuesday.
In return, Britain is pushing for Beijing to sign an international agreement on human rights, the paper said, citing unnamed senior British officials.
It said London understood the US opposition -- which could lead to European nations that sell arms to China being denied US military technology -- but that it also believed a new EU code of conduct on arms sales would stop weapons being used by China for "external aggression or internal repression."
Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
The report comes as China ratchets up the pressure against Taiwan. Boucher also repeated a longstanding US warning that China's military buildup against Taiwan was destabilizing.
Those comments came two days after the Pentagon said in a report that Beijing was developing "credible military options" to prevent Taiwan from achieving independence, including tools to discourage the US from coming to Taiwan's aid.
Earlier, China had defended its military build-up as essential to safeguard national sovereignty and accused the Pentagon of having "ulterior motives" and continuing with Cold War thinking.
Cross-strait tensions have been on the rise since 2000, when Chen Shui-bian (
Asked to reconcile the fact that the US and China were enjoying a warmer relationship and better cooperation with the fact that the US still publicly treats China as a threat, Boucher said that Washington's position had been consistent.
"We have had a very consistent policy of cooperating with China wherever we can, but also being clear about our differences," he said.
"And when it comes to the Taiwan Straits [sic], I think we have very consistent policy supporting peaceful resolution," he said.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS