German coalition partners oppose lifting arms embargo on China14/03/2005
The Greens, coalition partners in the German government, said on Monday that China's adoption of a law giving it the legal basis to attack Taiwan showed why an EU arms embargo against China should remain in place.
"In view of the current developments in the crisis between China and Taiwan, the conditions for a speedy lifting of the embargo are pushed further back," said Claudia Roth, the Greens' chairwoman.
The decision to adopt the anti-secession law was a "warrant to wage war on Taiwan", Roth added.
The Greens form the ruling coalition with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats.
Schroeder is coming under increasing pressure to drop his support for the arms embargo against China to be lifted, a position he shares with France and other EU members who believe it is outdated.
The United States is strongly opposed to lifting the embargo, which was opposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, fearing its forces might be sucked into a conflict if a better-armed China were to take military action against an independence-minded Taipei.
The European Union insisted on Monday that its plans to lift the embargo should not bolster China's military threat to Taiwan.
The Europeans plan to compensate for the lifting of the arms ban by beefing up a self-imposed code of conduct, designed to prevent the sale of certain types of weapons or technology which could be used for non-defence purposes.
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posted 15 March 2005 11:25 AM
