Meiji University Title EU����������-������������- Author(s) �,�? Citation �������, 35: 83-103 URL http://hdl.handle.net/10291/17868 Rights Issue Date 2012-02-29 Text version publisher Type Departmental Bulletin Paper DOI https://m-repo.lib.meiji.ac.jp/
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Meiji University
Title EUの軍備管理と武器禁輸-内部衝突と外部からの影響-
Author(s) 李,永?
Citation 政治学研究論集, 35: 83-103
URL http://hdl.handle.net/10291/17868
Rights
Issue Date 2012-02-29
Text version publisher
Type Departmental Bulletin Paper
DOI
https://m-repo.lib.meiji.ac.jp/
政治学研究論集
第35号 2012.2
EU's Arms Control and Arms Embargo
【Abstract】
一一-InternalConflicts and External Influences
EUの軍備管理と武器禁輸
ー一一内部衝突と外部からの影響
博士後期課程政治学専攻 2009年度入学
リ エイシュ
LI Yongshu
China policy has never been a problem to EU before China's rise: during the Cold War East vis-a-
vis West confrontation, attitudes of each camp were set by default. A typical case can be raised as
Tiananmen Incident. In response to the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, East camp showed great sup-
port to the action while West camp condemned it and installed comprehensive embargo against
China. However after the end of the Cold War and accompanied by the rise of China, there have
been increasingly divided opinions among the traditional Western allies on the arms embargo
against China. European Union (EU) has taken a far softer line than the United States (the US),
and its friendly attitude towards China often unsett1es the US and its allies. Especially in 2004,
European Council suggested to the EU presidency of lifting the arms embargo on China despite the
inherited destabilizing danger in such an action. Although the lifting was not realized, it indicat巴d
the changed attitude of EU and the divergence in transatlantic relation. Oth巴rthan the US, China's
Asian neighbors have also been strongly concerned about the suggestion of lifting the embargo on
China, to whose worries EU did not display much consideration and interest. How and why EU
reached such a decision? What are the in丑uentialfactors to the arms embargo issue? These are the
questions to be examined in this paper.
The methodology of this paper will be first1y discussed, then through an examination to the histo-
ry of EU arms control policy and arms embargo on China,五nalarguments will be that unlike the
US, which changed its strategy towards China after the embargo, EU's China policy appears very
consistent; moreover, after the Cold War EU has no more urg巴tofollow the US foreign policy doc-
論文受付日 2011年10月3日 大学院研究論集委員会承認日 2011年11月9日
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trine and it enabled EU of pursuing its independent foreign po1icy. In other words, EU wou1d pay
most attention to the interest of its own, rather than others. As there are no interests' con宜ictsbut
mutual benefit between EU and China, EU decided to pursue a pro-China foreign policy. EU wi11
give in the US as well as others' interests as long as it does not provoke retaliation.
【KeyWords】 EU,China policy, arms control, arms embargo, the Code of Conduct
Introduction
As EU integration is under progress, EU foreign po1icy has increasingly attracted academic at-
tention. EU demonstrated differences from any other po1itical entities: it is a continuously expand-
ing collection of states; its organizational structure keeps changing and evolving; it is more consoli-
dated than a regional organization but looser than a supra-state; it owns foreign and security po1icy
and actively interacts with the world, yet each state owns great diplomatic freedom at their hands.
The complexity of EU makes it a challenging task to c1arify the working mechanism of EU foreign
policy.
Bearing the complexity of EU foreign po1icy in mind, it appears to be an interesting job to look
into the diplomatic interaction between EU and other countries. In this research, efforts are paid to
c1arify how EU navigated its arms control policy and arms embargo on China since 1989. Specifical-
ly speaking, this research explores the external and internal factors that shape EU arms control
policy and arms embargo po1icy on China. This exploration was originated from a case in 2004,
which is that despite the constantly confrontational situations between China and the US over
cross-strait issues, the European Council proposed to the EU presidency to lift its arms embargo
against China, which evidently indicated detachment from its traditional foreign policy coherence to
the US. In the face of the US severe criticism, EU justified its policy by giving the explanation that
EU's arms transfer to China 'should not be an increase of arms exports from EU Member States to
China'l after the embargo is lifted; and China ‘agreed not to buy arms from EU countries when the
embargo is lifted'2. The problem is, if this is the case, the symbolic meaning of lifting the embargo
will be much bigger than its practical meaning, though it still opens Pandora box of arms transfer; if
not, which is the worry of most concerned countries, it will significantly help China to challenge the
US dominance in Asia and may pose security threat to China's neighboring countries.
1 Council of the European Union, 16238/1/04 REV1, (1st February, 2005)
2“The European Arms Embargo on China: 20 Years Later", theEuros, accessed 13th September, 2011, http://
progr巴sscould be attributed to some other events happened in the same year, as stated in previous
sections: In 1998, EU Member States agreed that they would ‘neither propose, nor endorse' any
resolution on criticizing China's human rights status; in the same year, EU unveiled its strategic
paper on China, which is ‘Building a Comprehensive Partnership with China',31 EU's general
strategy of pro-EU-China relation in foreign policy required coherence from European Parliament,
which resulted that even within the Parliament sector the Parliament cannot push for the legaliza-
tion of the Code. And the general strategy is not the only thing hinders the Code; as another
material came in in 2009,‘the Council has since 2005 failed to adopt this Common Position at the
politicallevel', as ‘the reasons for this have never been officially explained but are evident1y linked
to the wish of some Member States to lift the current EU embargo on arms exports to the People's
Republic of China'.32 The nationallevel objections and EU level considerations together influenced
the outcome of the legitimation of the Code.
So far it has been argued that the Code of Conduct has been tampered for the priority of arms sell
to China; the influence of individual countries and other EU institutions have been great enough to
change the legislative outcome at the Parliament. In the next section, analysis will be dedicated to
EU's arms export to China in order to demonstrate why EU lifting the embargo can hardly be a
surpnse.
EU's Arms Transfer to China
It is critical to understand that EU's arms embargo on China is first, political and non-legally-
binding and second, unspecified. Such features lead to two outcomes: one is that EU Member
States can interpret the arms embargo by their own understandings and the other is that they can
export arms as long as they can justify the arms sales by their interpretations of the embargo.
Based on this understanding, this section willlook into the data of arms sales to China, and demon-
strate first1y why the arms'embargo is ineffective, then why EU wants to export arms to China and
finally why China is likely to import arms from EU after lifting the embargo. The answers to these
questions will further prove why EU's arms embargo is more likely to be lifted than not and why
the Code of Conduct will remain non-legally-binding for the purpose of arms sales.
EU and the US installed their arms embargo on China in 1989; the first question is how the
embargoes changed the arms transfer to China. From 1950 to 1989, eight countries had exported
arms to China, which inc1uded Albania, France, Germany, Italy, ]apan, UK, the US, the Union of
31 Wong,“Towards a Common European Policy on China?", (2005); European Commission, Building a Com-
prehensive PartnershiP with China
32 European Par1iament,‘'Code of Conduct, C66E/48", (2009)
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Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR). 33 Among these countries, the USSR should be responsible
for the absolute majority of exports from 1950 to 1968, which laid the foundation of the USSR-
based Chinese military system.34 The Sino-USSR split at the end of 1960s led to a decrease of arms
export from the USSR to China, which totally ended in 1969 until1990; meanwhile, there has been
evidenced an increase of arms export from the West to China since 1966, from France, Germany,
ltaly and UK.35 By 1988, arms export from EU regions to China occupied 83% of the total arms
export to China; the rest 17% was the US.36 In 1989 and 1990, which were the year of arms
embargo installation and the year after, the arms exports to China did not even make a decrease:
EU Member States increased arms export; the US stopped exporting arms to China and its place
was filled by Japan.37 For a more visually direct data view, the table below may shed some light in
how the arms embargo changed the arms transfer to China:
Table 2 Arms Transfer to China, from 1988 to 1992, [Unit: million US dollarJ38
Country 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 Total
France 38 80 59 68 46 290
Germany 12 12 12 12 12 60
Israel 28 28 28 83
ltaly 9 9 5 5 28
Japan 15 30 45
Russia 1150 1150
UK 10 10 20
Ukraine 18 18
USA 14 14
USSR 81 133 214
Total 83 126 215 245 1253 1922
As it can be acquired from the table, the arms export from EU Member States to China did not
stop, but even increased after the embargo. The embargo has been an almost ineffective tool of con-
trolling arms transport; as a result, the attitude of EU towards embargo can be described as arms
33 Data available at SIPRI, SIPRI Arms TranザケDatabase,accessed 17出 September,2011, http://www.sipri.
org / databases/ armstransfers/ armstransfers
34 From 1950 to 1965, the USSR was the sole arms exporter to China. SIPRl, SIPRl Arms Tra托ミferDatabase
35 SIPRI, SIPRI Arms Tra担sferDatabase
36 France: 38m; Germany: 12m; ltaly: 9m; UK: 10m; m=million US dollar. SIPRI, SIPRI Arms Transfer Data-
base
37 SIPRI, SIPRl Arms Transfer Database
38 SIPRI Arms Transfer Database
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transport is much more important that human rights, if human rights matters at all.
The next questions to be answer are why EU wants to export arms to China, and why China is
likely to import arms from EU Member States. First of all, two sets of data shall be introduced; first
set is the military expenditures of relevant countries:
Table 3 Military Expenditure of China and Arms Exporters to China, [Unit: million US dollarJ39
Country 1992 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
France 66221 62724 63059 63272 62642 66869 61285
Germany 62402 45460 44411 44454 45730 47453 46848
Russia 57716 38669 42317 45908 50937 53330 52586
Switzerland 6370 4138 3939 3964 4060 4057 4392
UK 55828 52579 52475 53122 55291 57907 57424
Ukraine N/A 2826 3170 3853 3770 3347 3442
China 21900 62100 72900 84100 92700 110100 114300
As we can see from this above, until 2010, most of the arms exporters to China suffered from
shrinkage of mi1itary expenditure, or at most maintained their expenditure at a fi.xed 1evel. The
shrinking budgets have impacted the governmenta1 purchase to the local military industries, and
the chain effect wou1d be that the military industries have to 100k for otherwise availab1e buyers for
their products in order to maintain their survival. China is the only country made a five-time enlar-
gement of military budget; it will be difficult for EU military industries to revoke their desire to
export arms and relevant technologies to China.40 The second set of data is the arms sales to China
in recent years:
Table 4 Arms Transfer to China, from 2005 to 2010, [Unit: million US dollarJ41
Country 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Tota!
France 98 73 75 113 62 78 499
Germany 19 14 6 6 6 6 58
Russia 3233 2550 1444 1331 782 410 9748
Switzer!and 65 65 65 65 65 15 340
UK 40 40 50 50 50 50 280
Ukraine 82 118 54 54 28 335
Tota! 3536 2860 1693 1618 993 559 11259
39 SIPRI, the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, accessed 17th September, 2011, http://milexdata.sipri.org/
40 Eugene Kogan, The European日uω1Defe却ceIndustry and the Appeal of the Chinιse Market, (2005), 11
41 SIPRI, SIPRI Arms Tn側約rDatabase
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EU Member States basically maintained their arms exports to China, however as to Russia, it is
c1ear that China sharply reduced its import from Russia. The reduction of imports from Russia was
caused by that China no longer needs Russian exports that much, as Russia's major exports are
hardware. China currently does not need lethal hardware but state-of-the-art coordinating hardware
and software; as many sources indicated that China has been building up and showed interest in
purchasing, the capabilities of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveil-
lance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) which is EU's strength and what Russia cannot offi巴r.42
As a conc1usion to this section, China wants and needs arms (especially C4ISR) which EU major
arms exporters are wi11ing to export. With a huge number of EU Member States swinging on the
arms embargo issue, the embargo can hardly be effective and the Code of Conduct wi11 be thusly
rendered. In the next section, an evaluation to the external infl.uence of lifting the arms embargo
wi11 be presented.
EU, the US and China's Neighbors
In this section assessment to how EU's arms embargo policy on China is being infl.uenced and
evaluated by the US and other concerned parties. EU's Code of Conduct for Arms Exports wil1 not
be covered as there has not been any revealed relevance to it yet.
There have been two rounds of calls for lifting the arms embargo on China. The first round was
during 2004 to 2005. As 0伍ciallystated in the Presidency Conc1usion of EU, European Council
proposed to lift the arms embargo in consideration to the significant development in all aspects of
EU-China relations, and it especially looked forward to China's agenda on ratification of the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.43 However such information was not appreciated in
the same way by the US, as President Bush said ‘there is deep concern in our country that a trans-
fer of weapons would be a transfer of technology to China', and the US congress even threat to
retaliate on the lifting.44 By the time EU gave up its plan of lifting the embargo in 2005, EU 0伍cials
admitted that EU yielded to pressure from Bush and retaliation from Congress, and lifting the
42 Peter Brookes, the Lifti:η:g 01 the EU Arms Embargo on China: An American Perspective, (Iecture given at Rus-
sels, Belgium at the European Security Forum, 2nd March, 2005); Kogan, The European Union Delence In-
dust:η, (2005), 32; Michael Swaine, America 's Challenge: Engaging a Rising China 仇 theTwenty-First Centu-
η, (2011), 177
43 Council of the European Union, 16238/1/04 REV1, (1st February, 2005)
44“Chirac de:fies Bush on China arms", accessed 18th September, 2011, http://news.bbc.co.出 /2/hi!europe/4288067.stm;“EU may put off decision on China arms embargo", accessed 18th September, 2011, http://eu-
observer.com/13/18719;“US, EU on Collision Course Over China", accessed 18th Septemb巴r,2011, http://
www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0.1564.1507278.00.html
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embargo during Bush administration would be impossible.45 As it can be seen by that time the US
could strongly infiuence EU's decision-making progress on the arms embargo against China.
The second round came during 2010 to 2011. In the second round EU still failed to lift the
embargo on China; nonetheless it should be mentioned that there are several differences between
these two rounds of calling for ending the embargo: 1) in 2005 EU has 25 Member States and since
2007 it has 27 Member States, adding Romania and Bulgaria; 2) EU's Common Foreign and
Security Policy us巴dto be a pillar of EU in 2005, but it became a consolidated part of EU in 2009;
3) as the role of foreign minister, the post High Representative has been install巴din 2009; 4) the
US changed from Bush administration to Obama administration in 2008. All of these differences
have subtly infiuenced EU's policy on its arms embargo on China.
The calls for lifting the arms embargo came in January of 2010. It was started by the Spanish
ambassador, telling the Chinese official media that‘We hope to deepen discussions on lifting the
ban'.46 Then the Spanish foreign minister soon backed it up at foreign ministers' meeting at Brus-
sels, saying his government was 'weighing the pros and cons' of lifting the ban.47 However it did
not fully represent the official opinion of EU at that moment; as it was the first year that EU
presidency cooperated with the High Representative, and the High Representative should be the
one speaking on behalf of EU. Therefore commentators were expecting the High Representative
Catherine Ashton to assume her power and to tell Spain to back Off.48 A surprise is that, Catherine
Ashton did not take the opposite position to Spain, but gave a justification that 'The Americans
hav巴hadobligations towards Taiwan which is where this all comes from' and ‘for us, it is about our
relations with countries across the world.唱 Atthe end of 2010, the fact was proved to be that
Catherine Ashton herself was a supporter to lifting the arms embargo on China.50 At the beginning
of 2011 Catherine Ashton's effort was rendered in vain as UK and several other countries did not
agree to support the lifting of embargo.51
45“EU postpones lifting of China arms embargo/Pressure from Rice, int巴malpolitics cited as reasons", ac-