Posted on 01/21/2005 8:50:47 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The European arms embargo against China, which allows countries such as France and the UK to export torpedoes, military electronics and chemical agents to Beijing, is obviously not entirely effective; European Union figures show weapons export licences to China nearly doubled to €416m (£288m) in 2003.
Yet the EU plan to lift the embargo has angered the Bush administration and Japan, Washington's increasingly assertive Asian ally. The US says ending the sanctions, imposed after China crushed pro-democracy protests in 1989, could endanger US forces in the Pacific and give Beijing an undeserved diplomatic reward.
US officials are particularly annoyed by Europe's disingenuous attempts to play down the issue's significance. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, described it as a "presentational problem", implying that the US did not understand how serious the Europeans were about maintaining restrictions on arms sales to China. The US says the Europeans do not grasp the implications of what they are doing or see how seriously the matter is viewed in Washington. One Bush official, fearing the use of high-technology European weapons against any US forces that might be called on to defend Taiwan from China, this week threatened European allies with "major problems for transatlantic arms procurement".
Europe does have arguments on its side, including the leaky nature of the sanctions, the fact that they are not legally binding on EU members and the varying degrees of strictness with which they are interpreted. The EU has promised not to lift the embargo until it has strengthened its code of conduct governing weapons exports and introduced a transitional scheme for recently embargoed nations.
European governments, furthermore, can be forgiven for questioning American motives in trying to curb European exports when Israel, a staunch US ally, is permitted to sell high-tech weapons to China. The 2004 US-China security report to the US Congress devotes more space to concerns about Israel, second only to Russia as a provider of weapons systems to China, than it does to the faltering EU embargo.
However, it is clumsy and irresponsible of the Europeans to consider ending the embargo without taking US concerns on board, especially when the re-elected President George W. Bush is holding out an olive branch to them and visiting Europe next month.
Weapons for China, an emerging superpower, is an issue of grave importance for the west on which the Americans and their European allies should co-operate closely. If human rights are regrettably being dropped as criteria - and there is no sign that the US will apply the same "freedom" standards to China as it does to Iran, Burma, North Korea, Belarus and Zimbabwe - Europe and the US must at least agree on a list of items and systems banned for export to China.
Not unreasonably, the US is adamant that China should be refused technology that would threaten US aircraft carrier battle groups, the means by which the US deters Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
Pressed by China to end the embargo and by the US to keep it, the EU dismisses the embargo as outdated but insists its proposed new regime would not lead to greatly increased arms sales. One does not have to be American to find this argument unconvincing. The best solution is for the EU and the US to agree what sanctions they want to keep on China and then to apply them as firmly as possible.
That's a lot of materiel.
Sounds like they need to pass a more effective sanction not throw it in the toilet!
This is just another sign of France's duplicity. Their goal is to harm the US and they'd gladly join Saddam, Mugabe, or Communist China to do it. It's pitiful to watch them attempt to rationalize their backstabbing.
later read
We'll be at war with China within 10 years. They are rapidly building up a 'blue water' navy, and there is only one other navy that can challenge them: The US Navy.
I hope those European scum burn in hell for all the US sailors that will die because of their greed and disdain for the US.
Yes, there is no question we'll be at war soon with China. The only question is when. Your 10 years just might be right but I would be more inclined toward 15. We'll see, won't we!
so when/if we do go to war with china is that the moment we close all walmarts and take chicom GNP go to 0 overnight...
hmm do they know that?
I hope we don't, but reading the news lately, it seems as though it's leaning that way, doesn't it?
I have no doubt my old shipmates will kick ass, but the cost will be terribly high.
(Israel, a staunch US ally, is permitted to sell high-tech weapons to China.)
I don't know about anyone else, but the above bothers me quite a bit. I was ready to blast the EU on this thread before seeing it. Apart from making us look like hypocrites, what the heck is Israel thinking? It would be poetic justice if China turns around and sells the same stuff to Iran!
They already are.
We did it to Germany and Japan. The world was trading then too.
The EU is the enemy and China is the enemy. The new Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. When will people in government get that. Still at least Bush will stop military support to Europe if they do lift the sanctions. Israel needs to be held accountable too. While I support them against islamofascism, that is no excuse for them to be doing that. What concerns me most. Will britain be STUPID enough to sell the technology of the JSF to China?
Indeed. The cost will be high and all those sailors dying will be saddening. But China's expansionism must be stopped. They took Tibet. They took numorous other territories. We cannot allow them to get Taiwan or Japan.
Some men grow tall by helping others stand, and some men become taller by chopping others off at the knees. It is pretty obvious how the European Union "stands".
You are taking things to extreme. JSF technology is not on the cards for sale to China. There will be severe restrictions on high technology sales. If the Chinese want JSF engine technology for example all they have to do is go to the Russians. The Russians worked with Lockheed on the JSF and supplied all their engine technology from the Yak-141 Freestyle. The Russians were the first to fly the engine set up that is on the STOVL JSF variant.
<< so when/if we do go to war with china is that the moment we close all walmarts and take chicom GNP go to 0 overnight...
hmm do they know that? >>
And -- that on day one and just for starters -- as a kinda show card -- we will simultaneously nuke Three Gorges Dam and Pigking, Shankhiiiiii and Kunming -- and kill about ten million -- or twenty [By then, who's counting?] of them.
[H F -- you named after the Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands airport I used to fly out of -- or the one at Midway I've often ferried through?]
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