EU Holds Out Prospect of End to China Arms Embargo

[maddezmom]

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The EU told China on Wednesday it was not yet ready to end its 15-year-old ban on selling it arms, but suggested the embargo could be lifted in early 2005 despite opposition from human rights groups and Washington.



Imposed after Beijing's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the embargo on arms sales was expected to take center stage at a European Union (news - web sites)-China summit in the Netherlands.


But the agenda also included the prospect of China gaining dominance of the world textiles and clothing market after quotas are scrapped at the end of this month, and the EU's drive for an agreement on readmitting illegal Chinese immigrants.


Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country is currently president of the 25-nation EU, said he hoped the arms ban would be lifted next year. "We are working assiduously but... the time is not right to lift the embargo," Bot told reporters as he went into the talks with Premier Wen Jiabao and four Chinese ministers. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told France's Europe 1 radio that he hoped for a decision on the embargo soon and suggested that it could come at the bloc's summit next March.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=731&e=5&u=/nm/20041208/wl_nm/eu_china_dc

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Is it just me

or has the rest of the world quietly decided after the (s)election that we would be better off being made irrelevant?

[Tempest]

2. Decided after the first (s)election

These talks have been going on for some time now.