China calls on EU to end arms embargo

China has called on the European Union to end a 15-year-old arms embargo in the interest of better relations as Premier Wen Jiabao prepared to attend an EU-China meeting in the Netherlands.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue rejected arguments the ban should stay in place because Beijing had failed to do enough to improve human rights, saying the two issues should not be linked.

“To maintain such an embargo is discriminatory and an obstacle to the promotion of China-EU relations,” Zhang said on the eve of the meeting between Wen and EU leaders in Amsterdam.

“We need a fresh decision to put an end to the discrimination.”

The EU imposed the ban on weapons sales to China, following the bloody 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

Germany and France, eager to sell to China’s military, want to see it lifted. Other governments have refused. EU leaders are expected to take up the issue at a December 17 meeting.

Wen is expected to lobby European leaders over the embargo when they meet on Wednesday and Thursday.

Speaking yesterday at a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Wen called the ban an outdated “result of the Cold War”, but didn’t say whether he expected it to be lifted.

Schroeder affirmed his desire to see the ban lifted despite opposition from within his own Social Democrat and Green party coalition.

China has no immediate plans to buy European weapons, Zhang said at a regular news briefing.

Human rights groups oppose lifting the ban. New York-based Human Rights Watch called for the EU to press for an independent investigation of the 1989 bloodshed.

Zhang said human rights complaints should be handled in a regular dialogue system under which the EU and Beijing have held 17 rounds of talks.

“We can settle these differences within the framework of the human rights dialogue,” she said. “Human rights should not be cited as an excuse and cannot be linked to the arms embargo.”