BRUSSELS: Six months after they promised to launch a new era in transatlantic relations, the European Union and the United States have become entangled in another acrimonious feud — this time over EU plans to lift a 16-year old arms embargo on China.
Washington has warned that the EU move risks endangering the fragile balance of power in Asia and would send the wrong signal on China’s human rights record. But EU governments — led by France and Germany — argue that the arms sales ban is a relic of the past and must be replaced with a new code of conduct regulating deliveries of European weapons to Beijing.
The arguments are about more than China’s military power and the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army, however. Fuelling the latest transatlantic row are starkly different views on the two sides on the Atlantic on the wider and more crucial question of how best to tackle China’s rising power.
China’s emergence as a global political player and one of the world’s leading economic powerhouses is seen as an opportunity rather than a threat by governments in the 25-nation EU. Trade between Brussels and Beijing is growing and the EU has become China’s largest foreign trading partner.
Most US policymakers, however, continue to view China as a strategic rival and a challenge to Washington’s authority, especially in Asia.
Significantly also, for many in the US, the EU’s determination to lift the arms embargo on China despite repeated warnings from Washington — including threats of a cut-off in American transfers of military technology to Europe — is another sign that Europe is no longer willing to shape its foreign policy to reflect US strategic interests.
Many European governments first showed this streak of independence during the Iraq war and more recently, by refusing to follow America’s policy of trying to punish Iran over its nuclear plans. Instead, the EU is still struggling to find a diplomatic way out of the current nuclear stalemate with Tehran.
EU plans to lift the arms embargo on China has become an even more potent symbol of Europe’s go-it-alone approach to global relations as well as abiding transatlantic differences on how to manage the rise of China.
The EU policy of engagement with China was initially forged in the 1990s and developed further by Chris Patten, the EU’s former external relations commissioner and the last colonial governor of Hong Kong. He may have been denounced by Beijing as a “sinner for a 1000 years” because of his tough stance on human rights but once installed in Brussels, Patten played a key role in adopting a more pragmatic EU approach to doing business with China.
This involves efforts to build stronger political, economic and trade relationship with Beijing while, at the same time, running a separate “dialogue” on human rights with China. A similar approach is now being tried by EU governments in their dealings with Russia.
Most EU policymakers recognize that the presence of US troops in Asia is a key reason for the highly emotional tone of the American debate on China’s military strength. With no such military presence in Asia, EU governments see the planned lifting of the arms embargo on Beijing as a largely political move which will help normalize ties with China and reflect Beijing’s growing clout in global affairs.
France and Germany in particular argue that the embargo, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, is out-of-date and puts China on a par with Burma and Zimbabwe, the two other countries facing a similar EU arms sales ban.
The embargo is now “anachronistic”, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said recently. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is also pressing for an end to the ban despite opposition from his foreign minister Joschka Fischer, a member of the Green party, who has said he is “sceptical” about selling weapons to China.
Seeking to keep transatlantic ties on an even keel following February’s fence-mending visit to Europe by US President George W. Bush, officials in Brussels insist that they are doing their best to take account of American concerns.
In fact, the EU plans to replace the arms ban with a much stricter code of conduct designed to put an even tighter lid on European weapons sales to China. The EU code of conduct is, in fact, currently being made more rigorous and according to officials in Brussels will be much more effective in curbing weapons sales to Beijing than the embargo.
The revised code will include a so-called “tool box” which will ensure the transparency of all European arms sales to China and require the exchange of detailed information on the quantity, quality and end-use of all arms sold to China. Military technology transfers will also be carefully monitored.
Even if the ban is lifted, officials in Brussels say the EU will limit the flow of weapons and military-related technology to China because of standing concerns about human rights and peace in the Taiwan Straits. As such, they argue that Washington’s outrage at EU plans to end the ban is based largely on ignorance about EU arms restrictions — or on deliberate misrepresentation.
Washington appears to be in no mood to listen, however. US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick warned EU officials in Brussels recently that if ever “European equipment helped kill American men and women in conflict, that would not be good for the (transatlantic) relationship.”
Although the quarrel looks set to get fiercer in the weeks ahead, Brussels and Washington do, in fact, have time to resolve their differences. China’s adoption last month of a law authorizing the use of force against Taiwan if the island seeks to win full independence has slowed down the EU drive to end the ban.
EU policymakers admit that Beijing’s new legislation has complicated the overall environment. The EU also wants China to make progress on recognizing international political and civil rights.
As a result, EU leaders meeting in Brussels in June are expected to decide against an immediate lifting of the embargo as initially scheduled, putting off the decision until early 2006. Washington is unlikely to be reassured, however: The delay does not mean that EU plans to end the ban are being abandoned forever.
