Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-052"
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"en.20031217.3.3-052"2
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"Mr President, if they are not to be in breach of the principles of our European community of values, those who seek to remove the arms embargo on China must first have clear evidence of a change in the human rights situation. Chancellor Schröder wanted to curry favour with the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. In the hope of improving the climate for exports, he rashly added his voice to those calling for an end to the embargo, thereby pressing amateurishly ahead without consulting with other states. On this I am in absolute agreement with Mr Cohn-Bendit. He is not so much Confucius as confused!
Back in 1989, the embargo was a response to the savagery with which the democracy movement was put down; today, it is among the most important instruments bringing political pressure to bear in favour of change in the People’s Republic of China. Those who think in merely economic terms are blind in one eye. I can tell Mr Swoboda that Amnesty International is talking in terms of 1 500 executions carried out every year, with hundreds of thousands of people in jail, maltreated, tortured, and waiting in vain for a fair trial. Conditions for the Tibetans, Mongols and other minorities remain intolerable and our keeping quiet about them will do nothing to improve matters.
Since 1999, I have been chairman of the European Parliament’s Tibet Intergroup. All those who have addressed us, and all those of our guests who know China well, leave us in no doubt that, where human rights are concerned, there has been hardly any progress.
I am also thinking of Taiwan. For weeks, Peking has been threatening a military attack in the event of Taiwan deciding to hold a referendum on formal independence.
I welcome the initiative taken by the Commission in scrutinising the planned sale of a German nuclear power station to China.
The export of usable goods is subject to the European Union’s approval; I am glad to see Mr Cohn-Bendit agreeing with me on this.
Two things are necessary: one is that the Member States should maintain their restrictions on arms sales, and the other is that we should get to grips with the actual facts about the People’s Republic of China – at national level, at Community level and, it is to be hoped, eventually in early 2004, at the international level at the Human Rights Convention in Geneva."@en1
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