LEAD: EU to consider lifting arms embargo on China

Asian Economic News, Dec 13, 2004

THE HAGUE, Dec. 8 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH END OF SUMMIT)

The European Union and China on Wednesday pledged to boost bilateral ties at their annual summit here, with the European Union saying it would consider lifting its 15-year-old embargo on arms sales to China.

''The EU side confirmed its political will to continue to work towards lifting the embargo. The Chinese side welcomed the positive signal,'' both sides said in a joint statement issued after the summit.

''The Chinese side welcomed the positive signal, and considered it beneficial to the sound development of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the EU,'' it said.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose country holds the EU presidency, and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao met for almost three hours after which the two sides signed more than half a dozen agreements.

They also signed a declaration committing to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot earlier told reporters that he hoped the arms ban would be lifted next year.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was quoted by Reuters as telling 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.

China has charged that Europe is ''discriminating'' against it by retaining the arms embargo and made clear that Wen would call for its lifting at the summit, their seventh since 1998. The European Union imposed the embargo after the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Some EU governments, including those of France and Germany, are keen to see the embargo lifted, while others, including Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland, are opposed, linking the issue to human rights and China's saber-rattling against Taiwan.

The European Parliament voted Nov. 18 against the lifting of the embargo.

The AP quoted EU and Chinese officials as saying their meeting also underscored the phenomenal growth in two-way trade that rocketed to 150 billion euros last year, double the 1999 figure.

China is now Europe's second largest trading partner after the United States.

At the summit, Wen also met with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the commissioner for external relations and European neighborhood policy, and External Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson, in an article appearing in Wednesday's Asian Wall Street Journal, said the present framework for EU-China relations is 20 years old and ''no longer adequate.''

''We should consider whether we need to overhaul this framework to bring together political, economic, environmental, social and other aspects of policy into a single overarching strategic approach,'' he said.