"EU arms embargo must continue to protect Taiwan” – New report warns of danger of war in East Asia

China’s rearmament is increasing the danger of war in East Asia, warns the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfBV) in its human rights report "EU arms embargo must continue to protect Taiwan”. In it the GfbV calls on the EU not to ignore the growing fears among China’s neighbours of the gain in military strength of the People’s Republic. A military attack by Peking against Taiwan would have serious consequences for peace in East Asia and world trade. The EU is however continuing restrictive Taiwan policies which do not even make use of the space provided in the "One China policy” of Peking. With its discriminating refusal to grant visas to the five leading political representatives of Taiwan the EU is fostering the political isolation of the island and endangering the democratisation of Taiwan.

China has been trying for several years to have removed the EU arms embargo which was imposed after the massacre on the Tiananmen Square in 1989. The embargo was "illogical” and "unjust”, argued the Chinese leaders and claims too that the human rights situation in the People’s Republic has improved considerably. The French Minister of Defence, Michèle Alliot-Marie, is within the EU trying to achieve the end of sanctions. Her German opposite number, Franz-Josef Jung, by contrast pleaded on his visit to Japan on 19th April 2007 for the maintenance of the arms embargo against China.

In the 38-page report, in which the arms build-up and modernisation of the Chinese army is documented, the GfbV takes critical stock of the human rights situation in the People’s Republic. The suppression of the Tibetans and Uigurs continues. The Chinese leadership shows no signs of readiness in talks with the Dalai Lama to reach a peaceful solution to the solution of the Tibet question. Family members and relatives are arrested in the case of Moslem Uigurs to place Uigurs under pressure who are living in exile. The religious minorities are also suffering under a wave of repression, although China is experiencing at present a religious boom. There are half-hearted "reforms” of the labour camps and the death penalty on the one hand and a marked increase in the suppression of freedom of the press and freedom of expression on the other. The extent of the arbitrariness is also reflected in the arrest since the autumn of 2005of several hundred Chinese, who had pointed to their problems with legally permitted petitions.