The EU probably will defer until next year its plan to drop its Tiananmen-era embargo on arms sales to China, as the union wrestles with ways to strengthen its Code of Conduct dealing with arms sales sales worldwide, expert panelists at a symposium in Washington said on Tuesday.
Any decision to lift the embargo has to be by unanimous consensus, noted David Shambaugh, head of the China Policy Program at George Washington University's School of International Affairs.
`Holding Out'
At least six EU member states -- the Nordic Countries, Ireland and Poland, however, are "holding out," which is sufficient to block a lifting of the embargo, he said.
In addition to the Netherlands, Germany and the European Parliament have recently issued strong resolutions against lifting the embargo.
Shambaugh said that the question has become a domestic issue in several countries.
"These are democracies, after all," he said.
Dieter Dettke, a former German parliamentarian and foreign ministry official, agreed with Shambaugh. He said it would "take some time" for all the countries to agree to end the ban on China arms sales, which Beijing would certainly use against Taiwan or against a US force sent to the area to defend Taiwan in case of a military attack by China.
Disagreement
However, another panelist, Robin Niblett from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington, disagreed. He said he felt the odds are 65-35 that the embargo would be lifted this year, saying the countries are working "day in and day out" to work out a way to lift the ban.
In any event, some panelists wondered whether the lifting of the ban would have as big an impact as some seem to think. The embargo itself is voluntary, and there has been a substantial amount of "leakage" since the it was imposed in 1989 in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre.
EU already selling
Dettke said that last year, 2.7 percent of China's arms imports came from the EU. And Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Strategy and Assessment Center and a recognized expert on China's military, outlined a long list of advanced military technology various EU countries have provided to China in recent years.
Panelists urged US President George W. Bush, whose administration is strongly supportive of the embargo, to urge EU nations to retain it during his upcoming trip to Europe.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also expected to bring up the issue during a trip to Europe this week, in which she will visit seven capitals.
Code of Conduct
All panelists agreed that before the ban is eliminated, the EU should strengthen the Code of Conduct on international arms sales adopted after Tiananmen. That code is voluntary and needs to be changed to clarify what arms and technology cannot be sold to China, they said.
Deliberations in Europe on the code center on eight new criteria for the transfer of arms and technology. Three of these would be of particular interest to Taiwan, Shambaugh said.
These are human rights, commitments to the regional security environment and the national security of allied states -- mainly the US.
In order to assure controls on the sales by member states of arms and military technology to China, Dettka said, the Code of Conduct must be made binding on all EU nations.
What remains unclear, however, is whether the European countries would have the will to accomplish this, the panelists seemed to indicate.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS