Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

Couldn't get thimbles to answer in a seperate thread, so I decided to give the question its own.

Interesting issues involved here; most Americans will vote no as they have absolutely nothing to gain from it, but I am curious as to how citizens of the EU and those who oppose American unipolarity would view the question. This is really one of the most direct and substantial actions that can be taken to create a multipolar world; but can those who want such a world live with themselves afterwards?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35669

I don't think that it will make much difference, long term, if we sell the Chinese arms or they make them of their own accord. In that sense, I don't think that the comments are particularly well-phrased. So far as selling them arms, I would say that it depends what the arms are, and the extent to which the countries in question believe that they can secure their national interest by selling the arms, much as the US thinks of its own national interest when it is selling arms. If anyone's plan for the world's future involves China not getting anything it wants at some stage, then I would say that they may be doomed to disappointment. I would say that the best thing to do is to try to change China, bit by bit, to being closer to what we want; I don't think that setting up as the enemy is likely to be particularly fruitful.

Of course, arms sales to China might have to be matched by arms sales to India, seeing as the two have about the same population and are regional rivals for power. So, certainly, before selling any serious weaponry to China, things should be considered very carefully.

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16327

Well said, Smug. I pretty much agree with your assessment of the odds of preventing the PRC from acquiring any arms systems they decide they need. In that vein, arms sales can be seen to, in the short term at least, have a stabilizing effect, inasmuch as the PRC is less likely to attack the interests of nations which are major suppliers of items not internally produced (assuming they are rational).

As for TWOOP's anger over US abandonment of Taiwan and "democracy", I have to ask: is it really our business to stand between a bunch of seperatists and their parent nation? Sure, in theory, the US wants to promote democratic governmental systems worldwide, but that is only in theory. Much as I hate to say it, philjit's old arguments for "realpolitik" approaches is in fact what dominates international relations. Not something I commend, or necessarily agree with, but there it is. Historically, the US has preferred whatever governmental system in other nations acted to protect US investments.

Not surprising, really. I've always said if you want to know where the true power lies, follow the money. Find out who controls the money, you find out who controls the power, and in the US it is not the politicians.

Not too mention, unlike all to many of my fellow Americans, I clearly recognize the enormous risk to the world inherent in the current "balance of power". America is not (never was) a benevolent giant wanting what is best for the world. As a nation, we are as selfish (rightfully so) as any other nation.

Europe should sell weapons systems to the PRC. So should the US. Just as we should sell to both India and Pakistan. Again, it is a wholly pragmatic position on my part.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

I voted yes. I didn;t do it from the desire for a multipolar political world though. I did it because arms embargos are silly and rarely stop the sale of arms to the embargo'd country anyway.

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Registered: Oct 2002
Location:
Posts: 1270

dont canadians get a vote or are we total dogshit?

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

the latter I'm afraid. Realisation is the first step on the path to acceptance.

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2540

The Chinese are buying good equipment from the Russians already. Europe, of course, can afford to sell China weapons because the US will be tasked to clean up any mess that comes from European mistakes...like always. Seriously though, if French planes/missiles end up being used to shoot down Americans or attack Tiawan at pretty much any time in the future I just really wouldnt know what to say...its also pretty much retarded to think that helping elevate China, of all countries, to a position where it can actually challenge US interests in the South China Sea is somehow healthy for the world.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7935

I did my answer, it's a bad idea to arm China.
http://www.asylumnation.com/asylum/...3/index.html?s=

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7935

Europa: EU vs. U.S. vs. China: Partnership paradoxes
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/20/news/europa.html
Richard Bernstein International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 21, 2005

Probably the next big strategic difference between Europe and the United States won't be about Iran or the Middle East or even on the broader question of unilateralism versus multilateralism. It's going to be about China, which, in the official European view is a "strategic partner," even as Chinese-American rivalry looms.

Two events in the past few days illustrate the European-American divide on this question.
First was the decision of China's government to make a nonevent of the death of Zhao Ziyang, the former party chief and prime minister, who fell out of favor in 1989 when he opposed the use of military force to quell the student-led democracy protests of that year, and remained under house arrest until his death this week.
And second was the decision by the United States to penalize eight Chinese companies, including some of the country's biggest military contractors, for supplying missile technology to Iran.

The relegation of Zhao to nonpersonhood shows that when it comes to sensitive issues of Communist Party prestige and authority, China, contrary to widespread belief in the West, is still very much a Communist dictatorship, a country whose leaders, as Orwell might have put it, sometimes require that the truth be made falsehood and falsehood made truth. And the leftover Orwellian nature of the Chinese government has tended to have more weight in U.S. policy making on China than it has in Europe.

The arms transfers to Iran, a more practical problem, illustrate the widening European-American divide on strategic thinking about China, with Europe less inclined to impose restraints on China than the United States. And, of course, this difference relates to the biggest area of trans-Atlantic disagreement, the emerging consensus in Europe that the arms embargo the European Union members have maintained against China since 1989 has become an anachronism, and that, probably before the end of this year, it is going to be lifted.

Indeed, who can entirely disagree with such a decision? It has been almost 16 years since Tiananmen. China's leadership today, may as in the Zhao case, still resemble the old gang that ordered the assault on the democracy protesters, but the assault's instigators, like Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng, have passed from the political scene. China in general shows no signs of playing a rogue role in global affairs.

Moreover, European diplomats argue that any lifting of the arms embargo would not be followed by actual arms sales to China. The effect, they say, would be largely symbolic. The European Union, sensitive to American concerns, would strengthen what is called the Code of Conduct governing arms sales that would severely limit the kinds of military technologies that China could actually acquire.

"China and Israel are the two countries that have already agreed to participate in Galileo," Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. Galileo is the proposed EU rival to the American satellite navigation system, the Global Positioning System. "This does not match with an arms embargo," Gallach said. "There is a total incongruity, and the Chinese in particular are keen to remove this incongruity."

Could that lead to conflict with the United States, the country that would face China militarily if it ever came to war with Taiwan? "We look at the Chinese as a strategic partner," Gallach said. "Some Americans might have the temptation to look at China as a strategic competitor in the long term, so we have to start by analyzing the situation in a sober manner, and to try to work together with the Americans."

Many American experts on China, and some in the Bush Administration, think that the strengthened Code of Conduct would be a fine way of squaring this particular circle. And yet, from the American standpoint, there remains something unsettling about a "strategic partnership" between China and Europe

David Shambaugh, a China specialist at George Washington University, writing in a recent issue of Current History, observes that China and the European Union constitute "an emerging axis in world affairs," one of whose common points is "a convergence of views about the United States, its foreign policy and its global behavior." In other words, China and the EU agree that the United States has to be constrained. Strategic partners indeed.

But there is a paradox here - perhaps difficult to believe in the wake of the Iraq war - but true nonetheless. It is that it is easier for countries and groups of countries that are not superpowers and have no global strategic interests to act without constraints than it is for the sole superpower.

To some extent, this has to do with the weight of a gesture, which is where China's instructions to its press to ignore Zhao's death comes into the picture. A superpower does not always get its way in the world, but its words and gestures and policies have consequences in a way that those of middle-size powers do not.

It's easier in this sense for Europe than the United States to relinquish its human rights rhetoric when it conflicts with other interests, such as economic advantage. That is why most European members of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights have voted against or abstained in the unsuccessful U.S. effort to have the Chinese record officially scrutinized there.

China can sell missile technology to Iran in part because it has no strategic interests in the Middle East - only the narrow national interest of ensuring oil supplies. And Europe can lift its arms embargo against China because the EU, however it might want to play a big role in a multipolar world, has no strategic interests in Asia - only the narrow interest of benefiting from the China trade.

So, for example, Europe has essentially eliminated Taiwan - a territory bigger than more than half of the EU member states - from its frame of reference. It won't be Europe's concern if a democratic Taiwan is forced, under Chinese diplomatic and military pressure, to give up its de facto independence.

There is also no sense of shared responsibility for the fate of a small island under pressure from a giant and ever more powerful neighbor. The Europeans know and can count on the fact that whatever the consequences of its decision on arms to China, the responsibility to deal with them will be America's alone.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35669

If the 'Europeans' think that the consequences will be for America alone, then that would be an error, I think. With relation to Taiwan, it will be (as the US has taken upon itself a legal obligation regarding Taiwan) an American issue (although the official US position is that Taiwan is a part of China, I believe); with regards to other effects of arming China, we might all have to deal with them, as we may if they get the arms through their own efforts, of course.

I don't think that it is in the interests of the EU to trust in US benevolence as 'sole superpower', anyhow. I would say that they should significantly increase their own spending on defence, although not to the potentially bankrupting levels that the US has.

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Registered: Jun 2002
Location: All over the place
Posts: 2803

As if anything the European arms industry makes will make the Chinese armed forces any better.

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2540

Actually a lot of it would.

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