It's no secret that Chinese politicians openly support torture and murder. After all, they are against Falun Gong... And it's no secret that European whores... err... I mean politicians (no disrepect meant to prostitutes) openly support resuming arms sales to China - a regime that refuses to reform.
This isn't the place to go into all of the Chinese government's crimes. That would require far too much time and space. So let's just recap some highlights/crimes:
- China tortures and murders Falun Gong members (see http://www.flghrwg.net/)
- China invades other countries (Tibet, 1950)
- China creates new legislation to invade countries (Taiwan perhaps...)
- China rewrites history to give it grounds to invade countries (South Korea)
- China destroys freedoms in free societies (Hong Kong)
- China throws its own citizens in prison for not thinking that the above things are good
And now we've got crack-babies like French president Jacques Chirac trying to sell weapons to China, even though he denies it. Jacques believes that the original reason for the arms embargo (torture, murder, Tiannemen) "does not correspond to the reality of China today". he just wants to "normalize relations with China". So, does that mean that selling death is normal?
At least the anti-drug campaigns in the USA are paying off. Politicians there seem to be a bit more sober about the situation. Condoleezza Rice stated here in Seoul a few days ago, "The European Union should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese military modernization draws on European Union technology. It is the United States -- not Europe -- that has defended the Pacific."
It certainly wasn't Europe that saved Europe from itself in WWII. Without lend-lease Soviet Russia would have fallen to the the Wehrmacht. Even with lend-lease, Soviet troops cleared mine fields for tanks by linking arms and walking across them. Without German troops committed to the Eastern Front, the Allies would never have stood a snowball's hope in Hell of invading Europe. Who was responsible for lend-lease? Europe? No. Maybe it was their friends in North America. But that's all in the past now, isn't it?
European governments seem to have a very short memory and show very little appreciation for those that share their better values and are actually willing to help them. I don't recall any Chinese troops shooting at the Wehrmacht or liberating death camps.
Why would governments in Europe be so eager now to support a regime that bears a very similar resemblance to the same one that destroyed Europe? Could it be MONEY?
You may be familiar with statistics about the international illegal drug trade. It's peanuts compared to the arms trade. Weapons and death mean money. And lots of it. Europe is selling it's soul when it speaks of lifting the arms embargo to China. It seems pretty clear to me that Europe is nearing moral bankruptcy.
At least in the UK there are some sober people. It hardly seems right to group them in with the rest of the rabble in Europe.
I make no secret about my absolute hatred of the Chinese government. I think that Bush's Axis of Evil should have included China. I have nothing against the Chinese people. I feel sorry for them. They are to be pitied for living under such an oppressive administration.
Just to give you a bit more to chew on, here are some links to articles about the arms embargo. Take special note of how/what gets reported from Xinghua and other Chinese propaganda... oops... I mean news agencies... Also take note of European news agencies and their attitudes. Read the headlines and compare. The Europeans are just about ready to cream their pants in anticipation of making a few Euro selling death to China.
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&gl=us&ncl=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-03/23/content_2732264.htm (List of links to related articles)
France urges end to arms embargo on China (Xinghua - China)
Analysis: Cracks in EU plan to end China arms ban (New Kerala - India)
UK blocks attempt to lift China arms ban (The Independent - UK)
History tells us to keep the arms ban on China (Financial Times - USA)
EU's Chinese arms ban end faces delay (Swiss Info - Switzerland)
Cheers,
Renegade
(The following articles are here for your reference since often sites delete content.)
PARIS, March 22 (Xinhuanet) -- France said Tuesday that an arms embargo on China should be lifted, saying there is no change whatsoever in Paris' stance on the matter.
The arms embargo on China is an outdated policy and lifting it will be imperative, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Herve Ladsous told a press conference.
Meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac also reiterated his support for an end to the ban, which "does not correspond to the reality of China today."
Chirac told the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun that lifting the ban is aimed at improving relations with China, not selling weapons.
"The Europeans have no intention of launching a policy of arms exports to China, which is not asking for this," said Chirac, noting what the Europeans want is to "normalize their relations with China." Enditem
Analysis: Cracks in EU plan to end China arms ban
[World News] By GARETH HARDING, Chief European Correspondent BRUSSELS, March 22 : European Union support for lifting its 16-year arms embargo against China appears to be weakening as the United States ratchets up its pressure against the controversial move and more than 500 Chinese human rights activists urge European leaders meeting in Brussels Tuesday and Wednesday to maintain the bloc's ban on weaponry to Beijing.
The EU slapped sanctions on communist authorities in China after a military crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners in June 1989 left hundreds dead and thousands in prison.But in December, foreign ministers predicted the ban would be lifted within six months, arguing that China had improved its human rights record in recent years and did not deserve to not be lumped together with "rogue states" such as Burma, Zimbabwe and Belarus.
This kid-glove approach to Beijing has been flatly rejected by more than 500 Chinese democracy activists, some of whom took part in the Tiananmen Square protests."Contrary to the claims made by some European leaders recently, the human rights situation in China has not undergone any fundamental change since 1989," they said in an open letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.The dissidents urge European leaders not to lift the arms embargo until there is amnesty for all prisoners of conscience, swift adoption of the International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, and an independent "truth commission" to investigate the killings, torture and arbitrary detention that took place during and after the 1989 protests.
"Sixteen years after Tiananmen, the Chinese state remains highly repressive despite its calculated token gestures to avoid international censure," said the letter."Rapid economic growth has not been translated into improvement of social economic rights and has resulted in new patterns of rights abuses.The state continues to incarcerate people for expressing their ideas or organizing to defend their own rights, detain people in labor camps without judicial review, persecute practitioners of officially unsanctioned religions, use torture to extract evidence, and engage in widespread and arbitrary use of the death penalty."
The letter, which is signed by human rights activists and relatives of those who lost their lives in the Tiananmen Square massacre, calls on the EU "not to let business interests stand in the way of advancing its 'core values'" of democracy, human rights and the rule of law."Doing away this sanction without corresponding improvements in human rights would send the wrong signal to the Chinese people, including those of us who lost loved ones, who are persecuted, and for all Chinese who continue to struggle for the ideal that inspired the 1989 movement."
Some EU states appear to be listening to the campaigners' pleas.According to a report in the Financial Times newspaper Tuesday, Britain is lobbying other EU members to postpone lifting the arms embargo until 2006. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted Beijing's adoption of an anti-secession law aimed at curbing Taiwanese moves to independence had "created quite a difficult political environment" and that lifting the embargo had recently become "more difficult rather than less difficult."
London's reluctance to resume arms sales with China was underscored Monday when U.K.minister Bill Rammell denied Britain was "enthusiastic" about lifting the ban."We have certainly not been leading the pack on this," he said in Washington."This will take as long as it takes."
Britain's view counts because it has a large arms industry and will take over the rotating EU presidency in July.In addition, it enjoys close ties with Washington.The U.S. administration is implacably opposed to lifting the ban and has threatened retaliation against European companies that stand to benefit from closer commercial ties with the People's Liberation Army.
Speaking ahead of a visit to Beijing last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "The European Union should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese military modernization draws on European Union technology.It is the United States -- not Europe -- that has defended the Pacific."
Tomas Valasek, director of the Brussels office of the Center for Defense Information think tank, told United Press International: "It seems the U.S. campaign (against lifting the embargo) is working.Washington has not blinked on this issue, whereas European states have given the impression they have not thought through the strategic implications of their proposal."
Moves to delay the lifting of the embargo might be readily greeted in some Scandinavian and East European states, but they will be fiercely resisted by France and Germany, which favor resuming arms sales to the world's most populous country.Even in these two countries, however, opposition to the measure is growing.
"Lifting the embargo now would send the wrong signal," said Hans-Ulrich Klose, deputy chair of the German Parliament's foreign affairs committee and an influential member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrat party."This is not the appropriate time.
" Valasek said the cracks in the European position are likely to widen as U.S. pressure intensifies and the internal debate about the embargo drags on."In Brussels, inertia has a momentum of its own and unless the arms ban is lifted soon, countries whose support for this move was lukewarm might jump off the bandwagon.If backing for the measure had been solid, we wouldn't be witnessing all the agonizing and soul-searching that is going on right now."
- -- Copyright 2005 by United Press International.
UK blocks attempt to lift China arms ban
By Stephen Castle
23 March 2005
Plans to lift the European Union's arms embargo on China have been put on ice in the face of pressure from a group of countries, led by the UK, which now want to delay lifting the sales ban.
With the United States hostile to the idea of a resumption of EU armaments exports to the Chinese, several EU countries want to put a brake on the move in response to Beijing's tough line on Taiwan. Last week the Chinese government passed a law which would permit the use of force to stop any Taiwanese independence efforts.
The earliest that any move to remove the embargo could now take place is June. If there is no agreement by then, there could be a postponement until 2006 - after the British presidency of the EU, which runs from July to December.
Officials have drawn up proposals for a new, strict regime to apply to countries that have been subject to an embargo, including China. This is designed to reassure critics including those in Washington. But, because of the new nervousness about a decision, the Luxembourg presidency of the EU has not yet put this to senior diplomats for formal agreement.
The arms embargo, imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre, is a highly sensitive issue. France and Germany have led calls for it to be lifted. In principle, the UK is also happy to see the ban lifted, but it is sensitive to the damage that such a move could inflict on transatlantic relations.
History tells us to keep the arms ban on China
By Wang Dan
Published: March 23 2005 02:00 | Last updated: March 23 2005 02:00
The likelihood that the European Union will delay plans to lift its embargo on arms sales to China is a welcome sign of pressure from various quarters to maintain it. But the push within Europe to lift the ban has acquired momentum, and the issue is bound to return high on the agenda of EU leaders soon.
That is why it is important to remember why the EU imposed its embargo in the first place: in response to the June 1989 massacre of pro- democracy demonstrators around Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Ironically, perhaps, it was classical European thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke whose ideas of democracy and liberty enlightened me 16 years ago, when I was studying history at Beijing university. One episode of history that ignited my idealistic passion was the French revolution; its 200th anniversary coincided with the 1989 Chinese student protests. Europe has made an important contribution to history by firmly grounding its societies in ideals of democracy and freedom. This should make EU leaders proud.
When the EU adopted its resolution 16 years ago to ban weapons sales to China, it was an expression of moral outrage at the Chinese government's use of the military against peaceful demonstrators. Such reactions from the international community both moved and inspired us - the student leaders who were arrested, imprisoned, or exiled at the time. They showed us that justice remained a fundamental principle in international relations. In this context, our concern about the EU's move to lift the embargo is surely understandable.
The arguments in Europe in favour of lifting the ban imply - or in some cases directly suggest - that the appalling human rights conditions that prompted the embargo in 1989 have been rectified. That is not the case. Some European leaders have even commended China for progress in human rights. Such claims reveal ignorance of the realities in China. No doubt everyone has watched the country's economic progress, but in political reform China has gone backwards.
Take my own example. In 1988, the government did not force me to disband, although it was unhappy with, the pro-democracy group I organised, which often met openly on campus at Beijing university. Today, however, when Yang Zili, a Beijing university student, and three other youths held private meetings to discuss political issues, they were sentenced to many years in jail and subjected to abuse in prison. Is this progress or regression?
Some European leaders have referred to the June 4 massacre as belonging to "another era". This is not factually correct. Today, many participants in the 1989 democracy movement are in exile overseas and barred by the Chinese government from returning to their country. My own story is, again, an example. After my Chinese passport expired, the Chinese embassy in America refused to extend it, depriving me of my citizenship rights - simply because I participated in the 1989 movement. Today, the government still prohibits anyone from publicly mourning those killed in the protests. There seems little evidence that conditions are even nearly ripe for lifting the EU's weapons ban.
I understand the importance of engaging China. I personally supported the US move to grant China "most favoured nation" trading status, and also the country's bid to host the Olympic Games. But selling weapons to China is an entirely different matter. From solid trading relations, ordinary Chinese people can benefit; but weapons sales only benefit the officials involved in the arms deals and the Chinese government. They do nothing to help development of Chinese civil society or raise living standards of ordinary Chinese. It puzzles me why some EU leaders want to lift the arms ban while the Chinese government still refuses to deal with questions of truth and accountability concerning the June 4 massacre, and while human rights conditions in China continue to deteriorate.
To me, Europe symbolises the origin of humanity's quest for freedom. My respect for Europe comes from its protection of democratic traditions and the values of freedom. As China's regime still defends the slaughtering of peaceful student protesters, the notion that the EU might be willing to make more weapons available distresses me greatly; I can only hope that Europe will keep our hopes alive.
The writer, a Chinese student leader in the 1989 democracy movement who was imprisoned for seven years for his political activism, was exiled to the US in 1998 and is currently studying for a doctorate in history at Harvard University
EU's Chinese arms ban end faces delay
By Mark John
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - China's tougher stance on Taiwan has threatened to derail European Union efforts to boost ties with Beijing and delay lifting the EU's arms embargo.
New tensions on Taiwan would likely put off an end to the ban, which Washington wants kept in place, diplomats said.
China urged the EU to stick to its goal of ending the ban by end-June and rejected comments by Britain and others that it had been made harder since Beijing passed a law last week allowing the use of force to stop any Taiwanese independence efforts.
A delay would be warmly welcomed by the United States, which has pledged to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack.
"It is clear that China has not fulfilled certain conditions for lifting the embargo, notably by not raising tensions in the region," said one EU diplomat in Brussels.
A second EU envoy, in Washington, said China's law against any independence move by Taiwan had blown plans to lift the embargo "out of the water".
Others said no formal decision had been taken on delaying an end to the embargo, which was imposed after Beijing's bloody crackdown in 1989 on protesters during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, and that France in particular wanted to stick to the end-June target.
China urged the EU to keep to the timetable for lifting the embargo, which it said was unfair and outdated.
"It's unreasonable to link China pushing the EU to lift the arms embargo and China passing the anti-secession law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Liu told reporters in Beijing, insisting the Taiwan legislation was not aimed at war.
EU leaders were expected to discuss the embargo at a summit later on Tuesday, although it is not formally on the
agenda.
RETALIATION
French President Jacques Chirac sees boosting trade and diplomatic ties with China as a way of counter-balancing U.S. power in the world. He won the backing of other EU leaders last December to prepare the lifting of the embargo by June 30.
The EU insists arms exports will in any case be more tightly regulated by a revised "code of conduct" to be agreed soon.
However rights groups argue that lifting the ban would encourage China to think it could get away with rights abuses.
"Doing away with this sanction ... would send the wrong signal to the Chinese people, including especially those of us who lost loved ones," the Tiananmen Mothers group of parents of victims killed in the 1989 crackdown said in an open letter to the European Union.
Faced with threats of U.S. industrial retaliation, countries such as Britain, with strong links to the U.S. defence industry, have been more wary about the move's impact on transatlantic relations, only just healing after the row over the Iraq war.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said at the weekend the anti-secession law made the lifting of the embargo politically more awkward and declined to say when it would now happen.
"There are difficulties, there are concerns in Washington and the EU ... recognises that," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in London, adding: "This is an EU discussion, not a UK-led discussion."
Resistance to ending the ban is strong in Germany, where the conservative opposition sees the move potentially splitting the ruling coalition of social democrats and ecologist Greens.