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French minister says China arms ban unjustified
2007-03-19
The European Union's arms embargo on China is no longer justified and should be lifted, France's defense minister said on Monday, adding that this did not mean Paris wanted to start selling weapons to the Chinese. "The arms embargo has no technical justification because French and EU regulations are already more restrictive than what's in the embargo," Michele Alliot-Marie told a news conference in Beijing. Brussels imposed the ban after Chinese authorities killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 but some nations, including France, have pushed for an end to the embargo. Fierce opposition from the United States and Japan, coupled with China's enactment of a law threatening military action if Taiwan declares independence, made a decision to lift the ban politically impossible in 2005. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province. "The embargo only concerns the EU and hasn't stopped other countries from supplying weapons and components to China," Alliot-Marie said at the end of her China visit, where she met President Hu Jintao and her Chinese counterpart, Cao Gangchuan. "The political justification for the embargo is based on criticisms on the part of the EU over certain human rights issues," she said, without saying what those were. "But the same countries accepted that China get the Olympics even though the criteria for getting the Olympics are the same as the embargo. Their logic is inconsistent," the minister added, without elaborating. "France does not want to sell any weapons in particular to China. It's just a question of principle," said Alliot-Marie, who also visited Tokyo and Seoul during her Asian tour. In 2005, EU officials worked on replacing the ban with a tightened code of conduct on arms exports to ensure weapon sales to China did not increase overall. But European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said last April China had to make progress on human rights before the EU would lift the ban. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in January urged the EU to keep the embargo, saying the purpose behind Beijing's growing defense spending was unclear.
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