I guess human rights don't mean anything if you're Tibetan. Just more of the "sophistication", deliberate blindness and double-talk dishonesty that made their continent something we crossed an ocean to escape.

According to the Washington Times, the USA sells more than twice as much arms to China as Europe does.

I guess human rights don't mean anything if you're Dubya.

VERY cool! I emailed the link to myself at work, where I am a......
Defense Contractor!

I am using your links on our forum! Wish you good luck!

http://www.iiaf.net/forum

Phil & Joe K.-
The issue is what is a critical "defense export item"?

A Humvee isn't something that the Chinese couldn't duplicate themselves if they so wished. But on another order of importance are missile guidance technology or advanced computer controlled machine tools capable of precision fabrication of large naval vessel control surfaces such as SSN propellers. Both of which the US sold or gave gratis to the PRC in the past as a part of official trade agreements.

But Phil's invective concerning GWB is ingenuous. Both of my cited examples happened under WJC, though similar though diminished technological trade has continued between the US and PRC since 2001. The real issue is whether what the US sells now or what the EU is considering selling in the future is going to be similar in import to the famous Loral missile guidance debacle which transformed the Long March from a dud into an ICBM. Phil's citations give no illumination on that subject, as once again the Wash Times fails to deliver factual basis for its pseudo editorial news items.

The American and Europeans are already competing in the same spaces.

Hummers are mass-produced in China for the PLA. Some engines are sold to China by the USA (though not the kind that could equip the J-10 and other fighter aircraft), just as the Germans sold diesel engines for submarines. Keeping the present setup won't lessen that competition in any way.

The EU does have restrictions, as the USA does, that limit the sales of major weapons systems. Selling a Rafale fighter, or 4th-generation missiles like the IRIS-T or Meteor, or a Leopard 2 tank, or modern amphibious landing ships... is correctly seen as different in kind. Hence China's agreements with Russia (its main foreign defense source, though most of China's gear is produced domestically).

European countries have been quite willing to restrict defense-related exports to Jewish countries on the grounds of "human rights", or their potential for use in a war. Odd that the Chinese treatment of Tibetans or threats directed at Taiwan and its other neighbours don't seem to present any barriers.

And yeah, that IS the sort of thing many of us fled.

Which brings us to the next problem - in the global scale of things, the European countries don't really have to care how their equipment is used, do they? It's not like they'd be present in any kind of Asian clash, or forced to bear any of the costs. Devoid of any real responsibility, they can blather about multilateralism, human rights, and global peace while hosting Robert Mugabe as a honoured visitor and fueling developments that bear old European comparisons and potential cause for concern.

While lecturing the rest of us about their sophistication (the kind that gave us the last 100 years of human history, perhaps?) and their superior morality. Of course.

Tom makes a good point that some weapons are more high tech than others. I don't suppose China will be too bothered if it can't buy high-tech weapons from Europe, all it'll do is wait til America sells gives similar weapons to Israel, then buy them from the Israelis.

Having said that, all defence trade with China helps China military, because thay wouldn't import stuff unless importing is cheaper than making it themselves. Similarly, all trade and inward investment helps China economically and therefore militarily -- so countries like Japan or Taiwan, big inward investors into China, are hypocrites if they complain that others are helping China's military. Overall, there's plenty of hypocrisy to go round on this issue.

The article doesn't go into much detail about what items are exported, and it'd be more useful if it did.

Joe, restrictions does Europe put on defence exports to Israel? Where do you think their submarines come from? (Germany if you didn't know). The reason Israel buys more from the USA probably has more to do with US military aid having to be spent on US equipment.

Also Joe, you seem to be under the impression that I don't think European governments are hypocrites. That would be an absurd belief -- all governments have a large amounts of hypocrisy, always have and always will. You seem to think that Europe should put the USA's interests above its own (apologies in advance if that's not a fair characterisation of your views) -- but why should it? Non-European countries put their own interests first, above those of Europe, so why shouldn't Europe do the same?

Finally, this comment: While lecturing the rest of us about their sophistication (the kind that gave us the last 100 years of human history, perhaps?) and their superior morality. Of course.

Yes, Europeans do sometimes strike a snooty holier-than-thou attitude that military capability is symptomatic of moral degeneracy. This is silly of them, and they would do well to stop it. But you should be careful what you wish for: the current Europe is a much nicer player on the world stage than the old one was, the one that genocided entire continents, that killed and enslaved millions, that fought a years-long war devastating its continent and destroying tens of millions, and did the whole thing again, but worse, a generation later.

Joe, this is great news!!!
come on by D.I.D. now and again
heh. i may live there. ;)

Joe:
Look forward to reading your DID articles.

Re. EU arms exports:
Unless the European countries concerned are reamarkably delusional, then they will be fully aware that an East Asian War means economic disaster. Perhaps, maybe, there are some French diplomats both cynical and crazy enough to consider a global economic crash an acceptable element in an anti-US strategy. But I honestly doubt it.

The motivations for this are likely -
- (general) money.
- (French) the continual desire to tweak American noses whenever possible.
- (general) a vague belief that this is part of integrating China as an accepted, and hopefully responsible, Great Power, and that this can actually reduce Chinese temptations to adventures over Taiwan.

For an additional UK motivation, there have been reports that British decision to go along with lifting the EU arms embargo relates to congressmen Henry J. Hyde and Duncan Hunterending blocking a UK exemption from rules on special licenses for exporting unclassified military technologies.
Still a mistake by Blair though, IMHO.

The key aspect will be what actually gets sold; both up front as hardware and possibly less publicised sales of data, designs and software.
If they do come to include high-grade anti-submarine or air warfare systems then things are dire.

The cynicism re. Tibet. Yes. Because, realistically, Free Tibet is lost, gone, and not coming back, any more than Prussia, the Iroquois League, Greater Palestine or the Kingdom of Hwicce.
US policy is pretty plain on this too; so long as China leaves Taiwan alone, and the government does not go around massacring up-front, the Taiwanese will be compelled to accept the status quo. So, for that matter, will democrats in Hong Kong and China in general. And Tibet is more or less forgotten.
Hoping (praying) for evolutionary change to a liberalised regime seems better than antagonising an upcoming Superpower. Stimulating Chinese chauvinist/paranoid nationalism is the last thing anyone needs.

Regarding US arms imports to Britain, why would Britain want/need them? To use in its armed forces, of course. But what are the armed forces for? The most fundamental purpose is to preserve the independence of the nation (for this reason I think Britain should increase the size of its nuclear deterrent -- but that's another story).

But if Britain structures its defence policy to require imports from the US, and the USA makes these imports conditional on UK trade policy with China, then the UK has lost independence, not gained it; so its defense policy has achieved the opposite of what it should. Therefore I don't think the UK should make itself dependent on US exports.

One aspect of this that no-one's mentioned so far is this: if US weapons are so much better than European one, why does the USA care if China has them? And if not, why does Europe care if it can't buy stuff from the USA. (My take is that US weapons are slightly better, mostly because of lack of funding and salami-slicing have increased the length of procurement of European weapons, meaning they are less high tech by the time they are delivered. For example, Eurofighter could have been on full scale production in the 1990s, when it would have been incontestably superior to anything else in the sky).

Regarding Taiwan, both Europe and the USA have, at times, restricted their military sales to that country, in order to get better relations with China. But what if Europe and the USA made a joint announcement that they were prepared to sell taiwan virtually any weapons, and that they were going to accord it full diplomatic relations, with immediate effect? Since this would be a joint decision, it would be difficult for China to play the USA and Europe off against each other.

John is right about Tibet: it is "lost, gone, and not coming back".

Hi whats up with the Watershed site and the Defenseindustrydaily site? just can't go on to it. are the servers haywire? too much load? would u get back to me on the email I have provided? funnily, i keep receiving the mailers from DID.

thanks. jyoti