On the day following the closure of the central economic work conference, Premier Wen Jiabao flew to Europe for the seventh China-EU summit held from December 7 to 9 in The Hague, The Netherlands and availed himself of the opportunity to pay a visit to The Netherlands.

Earlier in the same month, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited China. Premier Wen's concluding visit draws a full stop for the "China-EU Year''.

As the China News Journal learned, the text of the joint declaration of the seventh Sino-European summit was not finalized until 4 am of December 8. The two sides discussed time and again about the clause 7 "Europe affirms that the European Union has political intention to lift the embargo and will continue to work on it." Sources said at the beginning the EU didn't plan to add this sentence.

Lifting arm sales embargo on China is a very complicated issue, which cannot be resolved in a day. Mutual trust is the fundamental problem to be solved for both sides though there is "all-round strategic partnership" between them, say Feng Zhongping, president of the Institute of European Studies, and Prof. Song Xinning, director of the Research Center on European Issues, Renmin University.

Look at arm sales embargo in a cool-minded manner

If the focus of media is on the "full market economic status" during Premier Wen's visit to Europe in July, then this time the focus is on "lift of arm sales embargo on China".

It is known that Chirac, Schroeder and EU Secretary-General and Dutch Premier have been pushing to lift the ban of arm sales. The relevant industries in these countries are to directly benefit from the arm sales and they will also have other profits.

Earlier in French President Jacques Chirac's visit to China in October, French newspaper Lefigaro published an article saying if Chirac managed to lift the embargo on China, then the order worth 4 bln Euros he got in China was merely an appetizer.

Yet Song points out that media only notices the voice from the group supporting the lift of embargo.

In fact, the voice opposing the lift of embargo is loud inside the EU. The fact that EU foreign ministerial conference has lifted the embargo on Lybia, but still keeping the restriction on China is just a clear proof.

The British Finance Times published an article entitled "don't give China weapons" on December 6.

Inside the EU, the governments are relatively rational and have reached a number of consensuses with China. However, the resistance is great in the parliament, public opinion and non-government organizations. It is still too early to work out a timetable for lifting arm sales embargo, says Ding Feiya, a researcher with the Institute of International Studies of China. She said the German parliament had adopted a bill against lifting embargo on China right before Premier Wen's visit, even though the German government supported the lift.

Aside from the opposition's voice inside the EU, outside pressure has made the EU embarrassed as well. Gregory Suchan, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs said in Brussels on Oct 11 that the US will cease military exchange with the EU provided the ban is lifted and will further give penalty to the corporations concerned. Japan, too, expressed explicit oppositions to this.

Ma Xiaolin, Editor-in-Chief of the Huangqiu magazine, a subsidiary of the Xinhua News Agency, described relations between Europe and the US as a relation of one person with his wife and children, or hands and feet; while China is like Europe's friend and companion. To which side the EU will incline under pressure is therefore self-explanatory.

The mechanism of EU demands approval from 25 EU member states on the issue of lifting the arm sales embargo. The "new Europe" is inclined to the US; the UK has "special relations" with the US; the Scandinavian countries are always opposed to lifting the embargo. All these will make the issue a very difficult task.

According to Feng, EU will probably choose a compromised approach under pressure from both America and China, ie. First, it will issue a political statement indicating that the lift of the ban is in conformity with EU-China relationship and the current situation of healthy development of the strategic partner relationship. However the lift of embargo doesn't suggest the EU hope to arm China. Second, a conduct for EU arms sales will be released, which raises the technical barriers a lot even if the embargo is lifted.

The Sino-European think-tank forum proposed by Wen Jiabao was also held during Wen's visit to The Hague, in which Wen described the Sino-European relations as "both on boat and on bridge".

There is no fundamental interest conflicts between China and Europe, instead the two sides have common interests as well as need for cooperation, said Wen. On this point China and Europe are on the same boat. Wen quoted a proverb of Confucius "seeking common points while reserving difference". Countries with different social systems can get along with each other peacefully. From this perspective, China and Europe are on the same bridge, a bridge for promoting friendship with more negotiations and for solving divergence.

Experts think the two sides still need to deepen mutual trust. Their divergences in the areas of human rights, full market economy status and arm sales embargo are all caused by insufficient mutual understanding and communication. How can the mutual trust be promoted when majority of members of the EU parliament have not been to the rapid-developing China?

By People's Daily Online