China urges lift of EU arms ban

The lifting of the EU’s arms embargo against Beijing would be a “win-win” situation for Europe, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao insisted on Thursday.

Addressing a Brussels news conference, Jiabao said he had pressed European Commission chief Romano Prodi for the EU to reverse the ban and that he appreciated Prodi’s “positive stance” on the issue.

“The specific benefits are self-evident [for Europe],” he said.

“One sells weapons, the other buys weapons,” said a jovial Prodi in a frank side-quip.

Jiabao said that “many countries have shown a keen interest in resolving [the issue],” adding that the Chinese government from the start was against linking the ban to human rights concerns and other political issues.

But extracting the arms embargo question from progress in human rights will be politically impossible.

The EU originally slapped the ban on Beijing in 1989 for its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen square and subsequent human rights abuses.

Despite a concerted French push for change, Brussels still remains coy about a timetable for scrapping the embargo, insisting that a definitive decision is not yet in the pipeline.

A number of EU countries, including Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, and the European Parliament still have strong concerns that it would be premature to grant Beijing concessions over human rights.

EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten recently urged Beijing to show “significant improvements” in human rights if it wants to persuade more sceptical European capitals that the time is ripe for change.

And Washington, one of Taiwan’s closest allies, is conducting a diplomatic lobbying campaign to persuade EU capitals to oppose the lifting of the ban over concerns that it could destabilise the region.

“We and the European Union impose prohibitions for the same reasons, most especially, China’s serious human rights abuses, and we believe that those reasons remain valid today,” said US Secretary of State Colin Powell at a February meeting with top EU officials. 

Jiabao insisted on Thursday that the Chinese government attached “great importance to respecting and safeguarding human rights” and that it had recently revised its constitution to prove this.

Prodi agreed that “year by year” he had seen progress in human rights, following a serious of high level Sino-EU talks.

But human rights organisation Amnesty International insists that “serious and widespread human rights violations” continue.

In a report released in April on the human rights situation since Tiananmen, Amnesty charts a litany of abuses from torture, unfair trials and repression of ethnic and spiritual minorities to an excessive use of the death penalty. 

“China continues to execute more people than the rest of the world combined. Executions are carried out following trials that fall far short of international fair trial standards,” the report says.

And with the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen approaching on June 27, Amnesty has pointed out that “dozens of people are still in prison in connection with the protests, or living in exile.”

 

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