Starkly different views on how best to tackle China's rising power are spurring the increasingly bitter transatlantic row over EU plans to lift a ban on arms sales to Beijing, senior officials in Brussels say.
China's emergence as a global political player and one of the world's leading economic powerhouses is seen as an opportunity rather than a threat by most governments in the 25-nation EU.
Most US policymakers, however, continue to view China as a strategic rival and a challenge to Washington's authority, especially in Asia.
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"The EU is on a clear course of engagement with China," says James Moran, head of the Asian department at the European Commission.
In contrast, the US debate on how to manage the rise of China is much more complex, Moran told a recent meeting of the Transatlantic Institute think tank in Brussels.
Both France and Germany -- the two nations spearheading the move to end the arms ban -- say the embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations is a relic of the past.
The embargo is now "anachronistic," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said recently.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is also pressing for an end to the ban, although Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a member of the Green party, has said he is "skeptical" about selling weapons to China.
Seeking to keep transatlantic ties on an even keel following February's fence-mending visit to Europe by US President George W. Bush, officials in Brussels insist that they understand US concerns.
EU officials visiting Washington in recent weeks have said repeatedly that the bloc plans to replace the arms ban with a much stricter code of conduct designed to put an even tighter lid on European weapons sales to China.
The EU code of conduct, which is currently being tightened and made more rigorous, will be "much more effective than the embargo ever was," Moran said.
The revised code will also include a so-called "tool box" which will ensure the transparency of all European arms sales to China and require the exchange of detailed information on the quantity, quality and end use of all arms sold to China.
Military technology transfers will also be carefully monitored, EU officials say.
Even if the ban is lifted, EU nations will "limit the flow of their weapons and military-related technology to China because of standing concerns about human rights and peace in the Taiwan Straits," agrees Greg Austin of the London-based Foreign Policy Center think tank.
Washington's outrage at the EU plans to end the ban is based largely on ignorance about EU arms restrictions -- or on "deliberate misrepresentation," Austin said.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick warned EU officials in Brussels recently that if ever "European equipment helped kill American men and women in conflict, that would not be good for the [transatlantic] relationship."
Although both sides will continue to spar over the issue, Brussels and Washington do, in fact, have time to resolve their differences.
China's adoption last month of a law authorizing the use of force against Taiwan if it seeks to win full independence has slowed down the EU drive to withdraw the ban.
Beijing's new legislation has "complicated the overall environment," Moran said.
The EU also wanted China to make progress on recognizing international political and civil rights.
As a result, EU leaders meeting in Brussels in June may decide against an immediate lifting of the embargo as had been initially scheduled.
A delay, however, will not mean that plans to end the ban are being abandoned.
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