Keeping aggressions in check

EU arms embargo against China must be retained despite France's wishes

By: David Shoemaker

Posted: 2/9/04

More than 50 years ago, the United States helped establish a country for fleeing Chinese nationalists on an island known as Formosa. It holds free elections and has a free market economy, in spite of the fact that few countries, including the United States, formally recognize the country now known as Taiwan.

Now the Taiwanese are going to vote on a referendum that would defend themselves from Chinese missiles, and countries that wish to curry the favor of China have been condemning the vote. This includes the opportunistic French, who would like to lift the European Union ban on arms sales to China. The European Union should refuse this request by France and keep the embargo in place.

The European Union first put the arms embargo against China into effect after the atrocities that occurred at Tiananmen Square in 1989, where thousands of counterrevolutionary protesters were killed after more than one million people filled the area. But now, according to the BBC, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villipin has asked the European Union to lift the arms embargo.

De Villipin said the "embargo stems from a (view) of European Union-China relations which is outdated," and the ban should be lifted when European Union leaders meet next month. It seems that France thinks the human rights problems that occasioned the embargo no longer exist.

Recent remarks made by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder indicate that the Germans have come to the same opinion.

However, it is more likely that France and Germany wish to appease China to build trade ties and avoid being cut out of the growing Chinese market. According to an article by the International Herald Tribune, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao announced that China Southern Airlines had already agreed to buy 21 Airbus airliners while he was in France this past week.

France has also expressed dismay at the referendum on the Taiwanese ballot to beef up Taiwan's defenses if China refuses to redeploy the missiles currently aimed across the Taiwan Straits. French President Jacques Chirac referred to the referendum as a mistake on the part of the Taiwanese, and the Chinese have painted the referendum as an attempt by the Taiwanese to move toward independence.

In his effort to pander to the Chinese, Chirac has backed China's effort to scare the Taiwanese out of deciding to defend themselves against Chinese aggression. Sadly, the United States and Japan have also shown their opposition to the referendum.

But the Chinese and the other countries backing their opposition to the ballot have failed to mention that the same ballot will also have a proposition to open negotiations with the Chinese, according to the BBC.

Since the Chinese have repeatedly stated that Taiwan is a renegade province, they should welcome talks to reintegrate Taiwan peacefully into China.

It seems odd that if Taiwan is part of China, China would point 496 missiles at what is ostensibly its own territory. Obviously, China believes Taiwan is a threat. What is new is the conscious decision by western-style democracies to abandon a fellow democracy for a few dollars.

The United States, European Union and Japan should seriously reconsider their positions on the issue. Although the desire to preserve peace in Asia by powers such as the United States and Japan is important, they should not forget their friends in Taiwan when China waves its emerging market in their faces. But the French have just proven once again their mercenary nature.

In Taiwan, like Iraq, France has shown that it values economic gain over the freedom of peoples and countries other than its own.