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Schröder Calls for End to Arms Embargo Against China
(Source: Deutsche Welle German radio; issued Dec. 3, 2003)
 German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called for lifting the EU's arms
embargo against China. The embargo is the last one that was imposed after
the bloody suppression of student revolts at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
"The new China is no longer the Tiananmen-China," dpa quoted a delegation
member travelling with Schröder on a three-day trip to China. While the
People's Republic apparently has not asked for arms deliveries, Chinese
leaders consider the embargo "discrimination," German government
representatives told the news service.
They added that China had proven itself as a responsible partner in the
United Nations as well as by acting as a mediator in the North Korea nuclear
crisis. France has already suggested lifting the embargo.
China eyeing German plutonium plant
While China might not be directly looking for arms, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao told Schröder that he would like to buy a plutonium plant near
Frankfurt and bring it to China. Siemens completed the 700 million euro
($837 million) plant in 1991, but it never began producing fuel elements.
Siemens CEO Heinrich von Pierer, who is travelling with Schröder in China,
confirmed initial talks about a sale, estimated at 50 million euros.
Weapons-grade plutonium could be produced in the plant, but China already
has had the nuclear bomb for about 40 years.
Asked about the sale, Schröder said that he didn't see any reasons why it
could not happen. "It doesn't look like there is anything that will prevent
it," the chancellor said on Tuesday during a visit to Canton province in
southern China.
U.S. likely to oppose end to embargo, plant sale
Schröder's comments on the plant sale are likely to anger U.S. officials,
whose foreign and security policy centers around the prevention of the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
They are also bound to eye with suspicion the chancellor's support for
ending the arms embargo. China is the world's biggest buyer of foreign arms,
followed by Taiwan, which is mainly supported by the U.S. government. China
views Taiwan as part of its territory and has repeatedly threatened the
island republic with an invasion.
Schröder still has to sell plans to coalition partner
After his return to Germany, the Social Democratic chancellor will still
have to convince his government's junior coalition partner the Greens that
an end to the arms embargo is justified. Members of the Green's
parliamentary group already said lifting the embargo was not up for
discussion. Winfried Nachtwei, the Green's deputy whip, said China's human
rights violations justified a continuation of the embargo.
Others agreed: "The chancellor's causing the coalition grief by making such
casual remarks," Winfried Herrmann, a Green parliamentarian, said. Angelika
Beer, the Green party leader and defense expert, also said that it was "very
early" to talk about an end to the arms embargo. Any Chinese arms requests
would have to be denied, Beer said, citing Germany's arms export guidelines,
which prevent sales to countries that violate human rights.
-ends-

A con questo vi saluto e auguro un buon anno

Russia: Moscow Hosts Talks on Strengthening Chinese Military Ties
(Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; issued Dec. 16, 2003)
 Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan arrived in Moscow yesterday for a
weeklong Russia visit aimed at strengthening the two countries' military
cooperation -- particularly on arms sales.
MOSCOW --- Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan is spending seven days in
Russia, holding talks and touring arms factories in St. Petersburg and
Moscow.
The extended visit reflects the continued importance of the arms trade for
both countries. China has been a faithful consumer of Russian military
equipment, and accounts for half of Russia's arms sales abroad, buying, for
example, 73 Sukhoi fighter jets in the past three years alone.
Ruslan Pukhov, an expert on arms sales, says China is a key partner for
Russia, whose arms complex largely depends on export sales for its survival.
"It is like an oxygen mask for a person who's gravely ill," he said.
"Without Chinese arms-procurement orders, probably one-third of Russia's
military complex wouldn't have survived into the third millennium. Factories
would have just closed down. They only made it through thanks to China. So
for Russia, relations with China are extremely important."
But Pukhov, who heads the Center for Analysis of Strategies and
Technologies, an independent Moscow think tank, warns that Moscow's reliance
on Beijing may present a danger if the Chinese market becomes saturated. For
now, however, the former adversaries are putting even greater emphasis on
their partnership in the arms trade.
A China expert and deputy director of the Russian Institute for World
Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Gennadii Chufrin, says it took
the two regional giants decades to reach what he calls an obvious
conclusion. "If you look at the map, you see that Russia's longest border is
with China. So merely maintaining peaceful and good-neighborly relations
along that border is extremely important," he said. "Also, [for Russia],
economic and trade ties come a lot easier [with China] than with countries
that geographically are in other parts of the globe."
Last spring, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Hu
Jintao signed a wide-ranging cooperation pact on everything from arms to
space and energy issues. This followed 2001's ground-breaking treaty on
"Good-Neighborly Friendship and Cooperation" and a settling of a border
dispute stemming from the 1960s.
This year, official trade between the two countries reached $12 billion,
doubling in the space of five years.
But to millions of Chinese and Russians in the Far East, it is unofficial
trade relations that are even more important. In cities like Khabarovsk and
Blagoveshensk -- situated on the Amur River, which divides the two
countries -- China is the only logical partner. There is no road to the
West. In those cities, local markets offer Chinese-manufactured goods at
prices that are far lower than Western products. The rising tide of
temporary Chinese migrants and traders regularly spurs protectionist
comments from local Russian politicians.
Just over 7 million people live in the entire Russian Far East, while 120
million Chinese live immediately across the border. But as Professor Aleksei
Voskresenskii of Russia's International Relations Institute (MGIMO) points
out, transborder population flows are a natural consequence of growing
economic interconnection -- and will only grow more permanent.