EU
must not suspend its
arms embargo of China
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
October 13, 2004
LONDON - Diminutive Taiwan's
(population 23 million) best defense against massive
China (population: 1.3 billion) is its vibrant democracy
that gives it its telling sense of community. If there
were a final showdown between the two it is true that
guns probably wouldn't count. What would matter would be
Taiwan's ability to amount a popular passive resistance
to a Chinese occupation, including ending all high-tech
investment in the Shanghai region which would have a
devastating impact since this is the single most
important factor in China's current boom.
But that is no excuse for the moves
afoot by France and Germany to push the European Union
into ending its arms embargo to China. A looser gun
policy by Europe sends just the wrong signal. What we
need is a reaffirmation of the status quo policy, the one
in effect today most of the time, a policy that the EU
now threatens to blast a hole in.
In his latest book, one of
America's leading foreign policy academics, Michael
Mandelbaum, describes the Taiwan Strait as "the single
most dangerous place on the planet". The elements for
catastrophe are all there. Taiwan could provoke China by
reaching for formal independence, a theme which Taiwanese
president, Chen Shui-bian, keeps returning to despite
having promised in his inaugural address last year not
to.
Or China could decide to act on its
conviction (which has little basis in historical fact)
that Taiwan belongs to the mainland and tries to get a
successful invasion of Taiwan over and done with well
before the 2008 Olympics, as Wang Zaixi, vice-minister of
Beijing's Taiwan's Affairs Office, threatened as recently
as August. Or the U.S. could decide to overdo its arms
aid and thus provoke a nationalist backlash in China.
Then indeed, as they used to say in the First World War,
"the balloon might go up". But if the status quo is
maintained none of this need happen.
The status quo is best for
everyone. Although Taiwan suffers from it by not having
the seat it deserves in the UN in nearly every other way
it acts as an independent country. China is stalled in an
old imperial ambition but gains the goodwill of Taiwanese
investors with their cutting edge technology. The U.S.
gets the best from both Taiwan and China and is happy
with the fudge that keeps the two sides calm. And Europe
and the rest of the world have the promise of more
prosperity by trading with a peaceful China and
Taiwan.
So why is the European Union
considering intruding on this precariously balanced
status quo? Whilst Europe has never before played a role
in this triangular relationship a decision to start
selling China state-of-the art weaponry would directly
unsettle the situation. It is not that the kind of
weaponry that China could then buy would improve its
ability to invade Taiwan - it already has that capability
- but that modern Mirage jets, stealth submarines would
strengthen China's hand against the U.S. should it ever
come to a showdown over Taiwan. No wonder Washington is
upset and no wonder that Europe is cleaved down the
middle on the issue.
The split is at the top. Javier
Solana, the Union's High Representative for Foreign
Policy wants the arms embargo lifted. But the
Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten
doesn't. The European parliament has voted overwhelmingly
against ending the embargo.
President Jacques Chirac of France
simply says, "The embargo makes no sense today", but then
with Iraq and Argentina the French have a long record of
selling to those who will later decide to turn their guns
on the West. But for Germany this is a new departure and
given that the Green Party with its long record of
opposing arms sales has its man at the helm of the
foreign ministry it is incomprehensible that Berlin
supports the French. Foreign minister Joschka Fischer
says pitifully, "Sometimes there are situations where you
have to make bitter decisions."
Right now China has less active
enemies than it has had in its history. It is threatened
by nobody. Chinese-U.S. relations have never been so
good. President Bill Clinton in his last years in office
hit upon a policy that President George W. Bush has
successfully continued- a regular drumming on human
rights issues whilst at the same time trading, commercial
and educational links are strengthened. Part of the human
rights stance has been to maintain the joint U.S.-EU arms
embargo, first instituted following the massacre of the
students in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
If Europe is going to destabilize
this carefully crafted policy together with the equally
subtle and related one towards Taiwan then it should come
up with a better idea. It surely cannot. The status quo
is the best for everyone and Europe should not work to
undermine it.
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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