EU business urges lifting of exports ban on sensitive tech to China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 16, 2004

EU business urges lifting of exports ban on sensitive tech to China

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"The Chinese market is very important. But the EU's embargo on exports of sensitive technologies and arms has affected our business in China." said an official from French company Snecma Moteurs, the biggest equipment supplier of Airbus in Europe, on Jan.10 in an interview.

His opinion is shared by Mr. Camus, CEO of European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), world's second aeronautic and space complex. He said recently that the EU's ban on exports of sensitive know-how and arms sale to China had long been outmoded and that this point of view was not just personally hold by himself, but generally agreed among most of people in his trade in Europe. He recalled his contact with Chinese aerospace experts in 1984. He regretted to say that there has been no such close contact any more since 1989 when the EU members followed the US' sanctions on China and stopped the Sino-EU exchanges on sensitive tech and arms sale which had just launched not long before and has lasted till now.

Many entrepreneurs in the EU nations hold the same wishes of removing exports bans on sensitive know-how and arms to China as they do. Their desire is quite justified. The embargo, covering various fields from information and manufacturing to environment, biotech and weapons, have enterprises like EADS blocked the access to the Chinese market for their large part of core business, a situation where they can do nothing but see players from other countries make their foothold there. Fortunately, leaders of some European powers have come to realize it. French premier Raffarin argued last year that the ban was obsolete. German chancellor Schroeder also told China in his visit to China at the beginning of last December that there was no restriction on Germany's cooperation with China on technology.

Actually, more and more EU nations have been aware of the fact that the strategy of joining the bandwagon of some other countries to place some tumbling stones on China's road to its industrial modernization was never a success, instead, it has made some EU businesses lose the massive Chinese market. It is reported that French defense minister Alliot-Marie has released that France is lobbying other EU members in a bid to have the ban on tech exports to China lifted by EU.

When the voice for relaxing the ban is getting louder from the political and business circles, the cooperation on technology between the EU and China is expanding. The two sides signed an agreement on cooperation on construction of European satellite navigation system called Galileo Project at China-EU summit at the end of last October. As learned the Galileo Project, when it is placed, will have the same function as America's Global Positioning System (GPS). In another development, the "Double Star" project under Sino-EU cooperation framework has hailed a successful beginning and EADS has signed an agreement of helicopter production line transfer with China Harbin Aviation Industry Corporation (HAI).

Personages concerned in France think that the removal of the exports hurdle to China is an unavoidable question to the EU facing the call from its business circle and that the Sino-EU friendly cooperation still gathering momentum will surely help to prompt the EU finally lift its ban on sensitive tech and arms sale to China.

From the Overseas Edition of People's Daily and translated by PD Online Lijia

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