By Bruno Waterfield - 13th April 2004
Beijing should do more improve China's human rights record before the EU lifts a 15-year-old arms embargo, Romano Prodi has said.
The European Commission president, on an official visit to Beijing, told the Chinese that for the EU the issue was a political rather than strightforward economic question.
"I did not put it as a pre-condition, but I told them twice how important it is for the European public opinion that there are progresses on human rights," Prodi told journalists after meeting Chinese leader Wen Jiabao.
"It is a complex issue. It has an economic aspect but above all a political aspect and a human rights aspect.
Europe is divided over the arms ban imposed in the bloody aftermath of China's 1989 suppression pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Paris and Berlin have led calls for the "outdated" arms trade embargo to be lifted as China becomes one of the world's largest economies.
But other EU capitals, and Washington, are uneasy over lifting the ban without clear evidence of human rights progress from Beijung.
"There are still some differences among European member states," Prodi acknowledged on Wednesday.
The European Commission's spokesman stressed that EU discussions were still ongoing, and were likely to be pondered at a meeting of Europe's foreign ministers on April 26.
China has been pushing hard for the ban to be lifted.
Beijing argues the current ban is “inappropriate” given the thaw in relations between the EU and China in the past 15 years.
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