EU assures Japan over future arms sales to China

The European Union today assured Japan that if it removes its 16-year-old ban on arms sales to China, it will ensure future sales of European weapons systems will not aggravate the security situation in East Asia.

The EU does not intend “to simply resume exports” and ignore the concerns of Japan and the US, said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country now holds the EU presidency.

He spoke after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who said he reiterated Tokyo’s concerns that lifting of the European arms ban will make East Asia more unstable – a view shared by Washington.

“The response was the Japan’s concern was very well understood” in Europe, Koizumi said at a joint news conference with Juncker.

He also said Tokyo will “actively participate in Iraq’s reconstruction” and planned to take the lead on that at an Iraq conference which the EU and the US plan to co-host next month.

The EU-Japan talks revealed a growing mutual desire to give more political significance to a relationship that has long been economic in nature.

Driving that desire is the rising economic might of China. In an eight-page, post-meeting communique the EU and Japan “stressed the importance of having China as a responsible and constructive global partner.”

Juncker said while the EU and Japan both view China as a “highly important partner,” they have “differences of assessment” of the impact of an ever-more powerful China on security in East Asia.

Japan is concerned about China’s tense relations with Taiwan and about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Koizumi and Juncker reached no breakthrough in a stand-off over where to build an experimental international nuclear fusion reactor and EU plans to lift a ban on arms sales to China.

The two sides have been at pains to craft a compromise over competing Japanese and French bids to host the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

The ITER plant must show nuclear fusion is a vast and safe source of energy that can wean the world off pollution-producing fossil fuels.

The plant is to be jointly funded by the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China and the EU. Backed by the US and South Korea, Tokyo wants it at Rokkasho in northern Japan. Russia, China and Paris’ EU partners want it at Cadarache in southern France.

The EU has set a June deadline for a decision to lift the ban on arms sales to China, imposed after the Chinese military crushed student protests on Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Last month, the 25 EU nations debated lifting the embargo but reached no consensus with several saying ending the ban depends largely on moves by Beijing to improve human rights and resolve peacefully its conflict with Taiwan.

Juncker said the EU was taking the views of Japan and the US into consideration by developing a code of conduct for arms sales, an issue that remains under active debate in Europe.

“The intention of the European Union, if it does reach agreement on lifting the (sales ban), is not to simply resume exports of arms to China in such a way as to endanger the security” in East Asia, he said.

“Or to go against the concerns about security regularly raised by our partners.”

France and Germany have been pushing hardest for an end of the arms ban, eager to supply sophisticated armaments to the Chinese military which has been on a buying spree in recent years.

Also attending the EU-Japan summit was European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso who said later relations need to be focused more toward political issues.

“Our political relations should become more proportionate to our economic relationship,” he said.

Two-way trade amounted to €150bn last year. Together, the EU and Japan account for 40% of global economic output.

Japan, too, wants to boost political co-operation, as evidenced by Tokyo’s desire to lead international efforts in Iraq’s reconstruction.