The EU looks like ending its embargo on arms exports to China: something the French have long been pushing for:
A new transatlantic rift will open today when the European Union formally tells China that it is prepared to lift its 15-year-old arms embargo. Washington said that the prospect that its Pacific forces could be threatened by advanced European weapons sold to China was unacceptable and that lifting the embargo would lead to restrictions on American co-operation with Europe on defence issues.
“We can’t countenance the notion of advanced European weapons technology finding its way into the People’s Army and threatening our forces in the region, or Taiwan,” a US government official told The Times. “It is very close to the bone for us. It is not at all in the EU’s interest to lift the arms embargo.”
At an EU-China summit in The Hague, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, will tell Wen Jiabao, his Chinese counterpart, that Europe has agreed in principle to end the embargo once China improves its human rights record and the EU has agreed a new code of conduct for arms sales
Once China improves its human rights record? Amnesty have just issued a report on human rights in China. From Fabian’s Hammer:
Amnesty’s 42-page report said even though many of those campaigning for better rights – including health, housing, labour, religious and ethnic freedoms – are members of groups set up by the Communist Party-directed government itself, activists are vulnerable because their rights are limited and poorly defined.
“Torture and ill-treatment remain widespread and endemic within China’s criminal justice system, particularly at the pre-trial stage when beatings or other forms of torture are often used by the police in an attempt to extract a ‘confession’ from detained suspects … Human rights defenders and others with strongly held beliefs or opinions who refuse to ‘confess’ to their ‘crimes’ are at particular risk of torture or ill-treatment,” the report said.
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