China may trade prisoners for arms

[msgadget]

<clip>By Li Jing

HONG KONG - A senior official from the European Union recently indicated that the 25-nation bloc was seriously considering lifting the embargo on arms sales to China, which was banned from buying advanced weaponry from the EU since the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen pro-democracy movement in June 1989. That ban was upheld on November 17 by the European Parliament in Brussels, and China's human-rights record was cited; the EU said it would also put legal teeth into its arms-sales code of conduct. Coincidental or not, the news currently making the rounds in in Beijing's political circles is that China will soon release some political prisoners and commute the sentences of others, in an effort to win points with the EU for the eventual lifting of the arms embargo.


The United States exerted overwhelming pressure to maintain the ban until Beijing improves its human-rights record; France and Germany have been especially keen to see the embargo lifted, opening the way to arms sales to China. Beijing will hold discussions with the EU in The Hague about the arms ban and human rights on December 8.
<end clip>
http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/China/FK30Ad05.html

Our trading partner working with the EU to get arms. Wish we had some international friends...

[Ian David]

1. Taiwan will be pleased as scorpion bowl punch

Yeah, this is just what Taiwan needed.

More weapons in the hands of the Chinese.

Why don't we demand they improve their human rights record, and their anti-spam policies before we sell them so much as a single bullet?

[Maple]

2. Because your economy

would collapse.

[Ganja Ninja]

4. Why don't we demand?

Bawhahahahaha! They own us. We can't demand anything. Maybe we should look in a mirror before we start talking about anybody else's human rights record.

[msgadget]

5. They have the upper hand

and no respect for anyone else.

[Bono71]

3. I thought China manufactured lots of weapons...why do they

need to purchase them? More advanced systems, perhaps?