Arms embargo 'is political discrimination against China'
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said yesterday China does not need 'expensive' and 'useless' weapons from the European Union, but stressed the need for an end to the arms embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen incident.
The arms embargo continued a 'political discrimination' against Beijing, which was not compatible with the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the EU, he said.
'China is committed to peaceful development. We do not have the need to buy a lot of advanced weapons from the European Union,' he told a press conference on the sidelines of the NPC meeting yesterday.
'China is a developing country. We do not have the money to buy a lot of weapons from your country that are very expensive and useless to us,' he said.
Mr Li also urged the United States to adopt a long-term strategic perspective on its relations with China, especially on the handling of the Taiwan issue.
Mentioning Taiwan in a joint US-Japan declaration on security arrangements recently was an infringement on Chinese sovereignty and interference in Beijing's domestic affairs, he said.
He said the Japan-US military alliance was a bilateral agreement established under the circumstances of the cold war. Anything exceeding that bilateral scope would cause anxiety to other Asian nations and complicate regional security.
He expressed appreciation that the US government was co-operating with Beijing in investigating, and handing back to China, officials suspected of corruption.
Mr Li dismissed the recent wave of talk on the so-called 'China threat' as baseless, citing the huge disparity in defence spending: the US military budget was 17.8 times that of China's last year, he said.
He said President Hu Jintao was 'very likely' to attend celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, after being invited by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
On the Korean nuclear crisis, Mr Li said Beijing hoped for an early resumption of the six-party talks, which remained the most viable way of resolving the conflict.
The six-party talks, brokered by China, brought together the two Koreas, the US, Japan and Russia, to seek a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis. The talks have been stalled since the third round, held in June last year.
He said North Korea had expressed a commitment to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and a willingness to consider participating in the six-party talks, after Mr Hu sent a message to leader Kim Jong-il.
'The US is a sovereign state; so is North Korea. The urgent task is for the two sides to increase their mutual trust and mutual understanding,' he said.
Commenting on recent Sino-Japanese relations, Mr Li said the two countries should resolve their differences on the Diaoyu and other nearby islands through negotiations.
Beijing and Tokyo have stopped exchanging visits by top-level officials since China protested at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where a number of convicted war criminals are honoured.
A resumption of the visits would depend on the Japanese 'taking history as a mirror' and creating proper conditions for the meetings, Mr Li said.
