European embargo tops Wen's agenda
By Willy Lam for CNN
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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Getting the European Union to lift its 15-year-old arms embargo on China is Premier Wen Jiabao's top priority during an 11-day visit to Europe.
Beijing is confident that an about-face by the EU on this strategic issue will put formidable pressure on the U.S. to follow suit.
The 61-year-old leader -- who is touring Germany, Belgium, Italy, Britain and Ireland -- is also keen to assess the impact of the May 1 expansion of the EU to incorporate ten mostly East European countries.
Diplomatic analysts in Beijing say the Fourth Generation leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen has decided that 2004 is China's "Year of Europe," meaning abundant energy and resources will be devoted to promoting Sino-EU links.
The Hu-Wen team is convinced that of the major countries and regional blocs in the world, the EU has the least "inherent contradictions" with the Middle Kingdom.
Beijing's first-ever White Paper on EU Policy, published late last year, envisaged the flowering of a "comprehensive partnership relationship" with Europe.
It is anticipated that China's trade with Europe, projected at $200 billion by 2010, will in a few years' time surpass that with the U.S., currently the country's biggest market.
For Beijing, the major sticking point with the EU is its ban on the export of weapons and military technology, first slapped on China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Wen said last week that embargo was "a product of the Cold war era and is totally outdated."
Chinese cadres have pointed out in internal discussion that a hi-tech and weapons lifeline from Europe would lessen China's over-dependence on Russia.
Sophisticated hardware such as France's Mirage jet fighters and German electronics would render Beijing's military-based psychological warfare against Taiwan even more effective.
And once European arms manufacturers have started supplying China, Beijing could easily persuade them to stop selling to Taiwan.
Most significantly, strategic advisers to the Hu-Wen leadership have expressed confidence that after Beijing has overcome the EU arms hurdle, it's just a matter of time before the U.S. will succumb.
This is despite the fact that Washington has been putting pressure on allies such as Britain to block initiatives -- notably those started by French President Jacques Chirac -- to lift the proscription this year.
The Hu-Wen team is, of course, worried that after the EU expansion the unanimous decision required for resuming arms sales to China may be harder to come by.
However, Beijing is banking on the time-honored "import card" to turn the tide.
A diplomatic source in Beijing said the central authorities had put together a war-chest of up to $100 billion -- about one fourth of China's foreign exchange holdings -- to buy hi-tech, military, as well as "dual-use" products and know-how from Europe in the first few years after the abolition of the ban.
And, the source added, arms manufacturers and exporters in the U.S. will be putting pressure on Washington to follow the EU because "these American firms cannot afford to let their French, German, British and Scandinavian competitors dominate the world's largest market."
That such lobbying has already begun was evidenced by the fact that the White House agreed last week to liberalize restrictions on the export of certain categories of non-military technology to China.
This took place during a high-profile visit to the U.S. by Vice-Premier Wu Yi, who blatantly flashed the business card.
"If only the U.S. government scraps unreasonable restrictions on the export [of hi-tech goods and services], it is no problem for China to import a few 100 million dollars -- even a few billion dollars -- more from the U.S.," she said.
On the economic and trade front, Wen's main goal is to persuade the EU to grant China "full market economy status."
This will, among other things, provide Beijing with a strong defense against charges that owing to state control mechanisms, it is easy for China to dump goods overseas by selling below production prices.
On the diplomatic front, Wen is anxious that Europe help block the allegedly pro-independence gambit of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian.
While Beijing is happy with how "strategic partners" such as France have abided by the one-China principle, it is worried about pro-Taiwan sentiments in quite a few East European countries that have just joined the EU.
Indeed, the dramatic enlargement of the EU could affect its views on not just Taiwan and the arms embargo but also Beijing's long-standing obsession of building a multi-polar world, or one free from American domination.
As was demonstrated by the Iraqi issue, several East European countries have been supportive of American "unilateralism."
This is despite Guangming Daily commentator Chen Shuren's contention that the new EU will "exert a bigger force to counterbalance and constrain unilateralism."
Moreover, as Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Europe expert Zhou Hong noted, the EU's expansion also represented the "aggrandisement of Western democratic and human-rights principles."
He expressed the fear that the new Europe might be "more aggressive" in criticizing the internal socio-political phenomena of countries that do not share Western value systems.
