U.S. Relations with the People's Republic of China (2005)

U.S. Department of State

Address to the 18th Annual Global Trade Controls Conference

John Hillen, Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs
Remarks to the Conference
Washington, DC
November 3, 2005

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While much of our work is aimed at meeting the threats posed by emerging challenges in the area of terrorism and nonproliferation, we also scrutinize potential defense exports for their effect on regional stability. And so we must recognize that international defense trade controls is not simply dependent on complementary regulatory regimes, but on common perspectives about security threats. Even if there was an extraordinary and unimpeachable commonality in national defense trade control systems around the world, it could be irrelevant in the face of profoundly different approaches to some security challenges. I certainly don't mean to imply that we should all feel the same way about every strategic issue in the world, but there should at the very least be an appreciation and respect for each other's perspectives on security issues that may be closer to home for some than for others. In that regard, I want to offer our perspective on the European Union's embargo on arms sales to China.

President Bush and Secretary Rice have made clear to our EU friends at the highest possible level our strong opposition to the possible lifting of the EU embargo. So have other regional states, including Japan.

The United States strongly welcomes the efforts of the European Union to improve its Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, whose normative criteria strongly resemble those of the U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer policy. However, we do not believe that even a strengthened Code of Conduct is an adequate substitute for the EU's China arms embargo.

As we have pointed out in our discussions with our EU colleagues, the European Union's own public reports on arms transfers show that some EU Member States currently approve arms transfers to China under both the embargo and the Code. Indeed, EU data show that those Member States approve more licenses for China than they deny.

This does not provide us a strong feeling of confidence that the Code of Conduct alone – without an embargo – would be an effective guarantee that lifting the embargo would not result in a qualitative or quantitative increase in EU arms transfer to China, as the European Council said in December.

I want to leave our European friends in no doubt that if the EU lifts its embargo on China, this will raise a major obstacle to future U.S. defense cooperation with Europe. In addition, there is no doubt as to the strength of Congressional feeling on this issue. I think we can count on it: should the EU lift its embargo, the U.S. Congress will legislate.

This is of course not where we want to go. We want our defense cooperation with our European friends and allies to increase. I am encouraged by the U.S.-EU strategic dialogue on East Asia, including China, and I hope it leads to an appreciation and respect for the various positions of the parties, especially those who have tens of thousands of service members carrying out the day to day tasks of security in that part of the world.

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