Wen to urge EU lifting of arms sale ban
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to lobby European leaders to end what Beijing sees as an outdated embargo on arms sales to the mainland at an Asia-Europe forum in Vietnam.
Mr Wen heads to Hanoi on Wednesday for four days and will hold talks with his Vietnamese counterpart, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, and attend the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) summit.
The summit is an informal gathering of leaders of 39 nations from the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Japan, China, and South Korea.
Mr Wen is expected to have one-on-one talks with other leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, on the sidelines of the meeting. During these bilateral meetings he will bring up the issue of the embargo.
The embargo, imposed after the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. According to Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang, with the trend of Sino-European Union co-operation, the embargo is out of line.
"It is completely out of conformity with the Sino-EU strategy for a strategic partnership. It should be banned. The embargo should be done away with," he said.
Some EU members want Beijing to improve its often-criticised human rights record before agreeing to lift the embargo.
While visiting Europe in May, Mr Wen said the central government was preparing to take a step in that direction by ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed in 1998. The National People's Congress has yet to ratify the covenant.
French President Jacques Chirac along, with Germany, are among the strongest opponents to the continuation of the arms embargo. After the meeting in Vietnam President Chirac has planned a tour in China to improve economic relationship with the mainland. Mr Chirac's aides have said that he would bring up human rights issues during the visit, but would do so "politically and discreetly".
However, analysts said the debate on the arms embargo and human rights issues would not derail the current development of Sino-European relations, particularly trade. The EU is expected to become China's top business partner, with bilateral trade worth more than US0 billion last year alone.
Song Xinning, director of Renmin University's Centre for European Studies, said such disagreements would not hurt relations. "Whether the EU will or will not lift the arms embargo, the decision will not affect the overall trend of ties," Professor Song said.
At the summit, Beijing and Hanoi were expected to sign seven or eight economic agreements. Business ties between the two countries have exploded, with trade in the first seven months of this year reaching US.6 billion, a 42.2 per cent increase from the same period last year.
Despite these improvements, the two sides continue to feud over sovereignty issues, specifically the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. In May, Beijing condemned Vietnamese boat tours to the disputed islands while Hanoi protested over China's agreement with the Philippines last month to explore for oil in the region.
While the dispute would come up, mainland analysts said it would not be the focus of discussions.
China and Vietnam have a history of uneasy relations that stretches back centuries and they fought a brief border war in 1979, won by Hanoi.
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15/04/2005
