EU Wavers on Plan to Lift Arms Embargo on China

Plans by Europe to lift an arms embargo against China this year are in doubt because of rising U.S. pressure and unease on the continent resulting from Beijing’s recent warnings to Taiwan, diplomats said Tuesday.

European Union officials have characterized ending the ban, in place since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, as a step toward normalizing trade relations with China, and have said that they would not inaugurate arms sales to the Chinese.

The move was once seen as a near certainty, but it has encountered strong resistance from the United States, where members of Congress are concerned about China’s increasing military might, especially in case of an armed conflict over Taiwan.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw reflected the waning European enthusiasm for the move in comments over the weekend. A spokeswoman for Javier Solana, the chief European diplomat, said Tuesday in Brussels that a law passed last week by Beijing threatening military action if Taiwan declared independence from China “makes the process more complex.”

The spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, said the EU still aimed to lift the embargo but that the timetable was uncertain.

In London, the Guardian newspaper quoted an unidentified Foreign Office official as saying Britain wanted to delay ending the ban until greater safeguards were built up by the EU to monitor its members’ weapons sales to China.

“If we lift the arms embargo, what do we have in place?” the newspaper quoted the official as saying. “We have the [EU] code of conduct, but is it sufficient? If we need to strengthen it, how do we strengthen it?”

In addition to congressional resistance, high-level U.S.-European contacts and a warning from the White House that President Bush would not support the move were prompting the likely delay in European action.

The apparent decision follows a series of visits to Washington by European officials, including French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Annalisa Giannella, an advisor to Solana.

According to congressional sources involved with her visit, even traditional supporters in Congress of the transatlantic relationship issued unusually blunt warnings to Giannella and her staff.

One such warning came during a meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.).

“He had a pretty tough discussion with the EU people,” said Mark Helmke, a member of Lugar’s staff. “He told them, ‘I’m one of your best friends [in Congress], and I’m telling you don’t do this.’ I think they were taken aback by the forcefulness of his remarks.”

A European diplomat said Giannella had attempted to explain the EU position: that lifting the embargo was a symbolic gesture meant to remove China from a list that included nations largely shunned by the international community, including Myanmar and Zimbabwe. Giannella reportedly emphasized that the move would not result in an increase either in the quality or quantity of European sales to China of equipment with possible military use.

But Lugar and others on Capitol Hill reportedly warned Giannella that halting the arms embargo would cause new damage to a transatlantic relationship that has only begun to heal from the mistrust stemming from Bush’s decision to invade Iraq two years ago.

The intensity of congressional opinion stems mostly from the fact that the United States’ security commitment to Taiwan conceivably could bring America into armed conflict with a mainland China military strengthened by European technology. U.S. worries have centered not on actual weapons systems, but on command and communications technology and other equipment that have civilian as well as military applications.

France and Germany are seen as the chief movers behind the EU’s drive to end the embargo, in part because it would help improve Europe’s trade prospects in nonmilitary goods such as commercial aircraft.

In an interview Tuesday with a Japanese newspaper, in advance of an upcoming trip to Japan, French President Jacques Chirac sought to play down the effect of halting the ban.

“Lifting the embargo does not mean selling arms,” Chirac told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “The Europeans have no intention of launching a policy of arms exports to China, which is not asking for this.”

Chirac said that an arms embargo specifically against China did not reflect Beijing’s diplomatic status in the world. He noted that China was a major force in global affairs and that Beijing had been chosen as the host city of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

European rules on the transfer of sensitive military technology would remain in place, and may even be tightened, Chirac said.

In a weekend interview with the BBC, Straw said that the new Chinese law directed against any secession moves by Taiwan had created a “difficult political environment” for removing the embargo.

The EU had announced in December its intention to end the 15-year-old ban, implying that it would take place during the first six months of this year.

Britain takes over the rotating presidency of the EU in June, and there have been suggestions in British newspapers that Prime Minister Tony Blair does not wish to be seen as going against the United States by lifting the ban during his nation’s term at the helm.

Daniszewski reported from London and Marshall from Washington.