Das EU-Waffenembargo gegen China-Ein Ende (vorerst) nicht absehbar, in: KAS-Auslandsinfomationen August 2004, ISSN: 0177-7521

The European Union’s weapons embargo, imposed on China after Beijing used military force to crush peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, will not be lifted any time soon. At least this was the message coming from the EU Council foreign ministers’ meeting that took place in Luxembourg at the end of April. While Beijing’s policy-makers and China’s statecontrolled media gave optimistic reports before the EU Council meeting that the EU would follow the Franco-German request to review and possibly lift the embargo, the EU’s foreign ministers earlier decided to delegate the controversial issue to a lower level. „The Council requested“, the Council Meeting’s official summary reads, „the Permanent Representatives, a Committee of EU Member States ambassadors, and the Political and Security Committee (PSC) to take the issue forward“. The PSC is made up of ambassadors plus military officials from EU Member States. China’s ongoing human rights violations and its failure to provide clear and specific evidence on the improvement of its human rights record, EU observers widely agree, will remain the main hurdle Beijing has to overcome to see the EU weapons embargo lifted. Brussels and Beijing established a human rights dialogue back in 1996, but EU officials usually refer to the progress of the dialogue as „very limited.