Rice Tells Eu: Don't Lift China Arms Ban

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, stepped up the transatlantic row over the arms embargo on China yesterday with a sharply worded warning that the EU should not upset the balance of power in a region in which it has no defensive responsibilities.

Ms Rice said Japan and South Korea - Washington's two main allies in east Asia - were also opposed to the EU's plans to lift its weapons ban, a move that they fear could allow China to buy sophisticated European technology for use against their own troops.

"Our view is that it is not appropriate," Ms Rice told a press conference in Seoul yesterday, on the eve of a trip to Beijing.

"The European Union should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese military modernisation draws on European Union technology. It is the United States, not Europe, that has defended the Pacific."

Her comments - by far the sternest admonition by a US official - suggest the White House is gearing up for a diplomatic fight to maintain the embargo, which was imposed in the wake of the crackdown by tanks and troops on pro-democracy protesters in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Beijing's communist leaders have never expressed remorse for the killing of hundreds of their citizens or launched a public investigation into who was to blame, but Europe has insisted China is a changed country.

American concern about the implications of a change of policy has raised the prospect of a trade war between the EU and the US.

The White House is particularly worried about rising tension over Taiwan.

Last week China's legislature passed a law endorsing military action against the island if it moves towards independence from the mainland. Last month, the US and Japan declared for the first time that they had a shared strategic objective in maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait. The fragile status quo is also being threatened by an arms race.

China has steadily increased the number of missiles pointing at Taiwan to 700.

Last week, it also approved a 12.6% increase in its annual military budget, part of which will be spent on new submarines and amphibious landing craft for use in a possible cross-straits conflict.

Defence analysts say a lifting of the EU ban would allow China to buy advanced software, avionics and communications equipment that would narrow the technology gap with the US.

Taiwan's cabinet has responded by recommending the purchase of $121bn (£64.5bn) of Patriot anti-missile systems and other US arms.

Hours before arriving in China for the final leg of her Asian tour, Ms Rice warned that the modernisation of the People's Liberation Army was a growing strategic challenge: "There are concerns about the rise of Chinese military spendings, and potentially Chinese military power and its increasing sophistication."

On Friday, President Jacques Chirac reaffirmed Paris's support for lifting the arms embargo. Germany has also been a vocal advocate for a change of policy.

US congressional members have already threatened a trade war with the EU if Brussels goes ahead with its plan to lift its arms embargo on China.

Britain has attempted to find a compromise between the two sides. While endorsing a lifting of the ban, it has proposed a toughening of the EU code of conduct on arms sales to restrict the types of equipment sold to China.

Europe had hoped to lift the embargo on May 8 during a formal meeting between the EU and China in May. But the plans were thrown into disarray when Beijing toughened its stance over Taiwan.

However, a spokeswoman for Javier Solana, the European Council's foreign policy representative, said the EU's position over the embargo had not changed."But we are in a more complex environment. That makes the initial timeline a little more complicated."