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China courts friends in Europe
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| 13 January 2004 |
By John Hill
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's visit to China in December 2003 reinforced Beijing's desire to forge closer ties with the European Union (EU). Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told Schröder that he hoped Berlin would play a positive role in pushing the EU to remove restrictions on arms sales to China. Unusually, Wen's hope may not be a forlorn one, as Schröder reportedly told his host that he would "work towards" getting the arms ban lifted.
Among the European states, Germany is a "special friend", and Sino-German relations are "better than most Western observers would believe", a Chinese source told JIR. During Schröder's visit, reference was made to Germany's past as a divided state and China's current division with regard to Taiwan - along with Wen's request that Germany does not sell arms to Taipei.
However, the real strength in the relationship lies in Germany's status as a liberal middle power that "has no reservations about a future 'superpower' status for China", according to Dr Sebastian Bersick, a Sinologist at the Free University of Berlin. Bersick told JIR: "Germany - in contrast to the USA - does not perceive China's integration in the world economy and its rising role in world politics as a potential threat."
Bersick said there is a "serious possibility" that Germany will now spearhead efforts to lift the arms ban on China, and that the German declaration has already disrupted the EU's united front on the question. "The chances that there is going to be wider support for this in the EU as a whole are very likely," he said. The Scandinavians in particular have categorically opposed lifting the embargo, but the mood seems to be changing, as countries weigh the advantages of maintaining their politically correct stance against that of tapping a lucrative market.
At an EU summit held in December, heads of government invited their foreign ministers "to re-examine the question of the embargo on the sale of arms to China" following a request by French President Jacques Chirac. Bersick suggested: "Schröder's new policy enlarges the room for manoeuvre of the Chinese government."
In its attempts to push its military modernisation programme forward, Beijing will certainly take advantage of the opportunity by lobbying EU countries individually for the equipment it desperately needs that it is having difficulty procuring elsewhere.
Items on Beijing's wish-list are likely to include airborne early warning radars - the USA blocked Israel from selling a system to Beijing - as well as products such as jet engines that are fundamental to modernisation and for which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is currently wholly reliant on Russia.
However, British foreign office minister Bill Rammell said on 18 December that lifting the ban would be "largely symbolic". He pointed out that there were other export controls in place, such as the EU code of conduct, which would prevent China from using any weapons purchased from Europe to attack Taiwan or for domestic repression.
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