get special licenses for exporting unclassified military technologies – a move pushed by a couple of Republican congressmen, Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, and Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the House Armed Services panel:
This week [three weeks ago now], the special relationship was cast aside as Britain lifted its longstanding opposition to scrapping the European Union’s embargo on selling arms to China. What was a solid, united Bush-Blair front against military sales to China was suddenly in tatters, scuttled by two Republican congressmen.
Apparently, no one on Mr. Bush’s foreign policy team warned him about the consequences of the Hunter-Hyde two-step into the unknown. And Mr. Blair himself simply explained to Mr. Bush that Britain could no longer be the lone holdout in EU against selling weapons to China. To mollify his White House friend, Mr. Blair assured Mr. Bush no hardware would be sold to China that might upset the delicate balance between China and Taiwan. […]
A senior British BAE executive said privately, “I have never seen Tony Blair so angry. British papers keelhauled him for getting nothing from the U.S. in return for his Iraqi commitment to Bush. And he patiently waited for an opportunity to show the White House and Congress that Britain is bulldog, not poodle.”
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