why does the west still refuse to sell china weapons?

[armchairwarrior]

if its about human right, i would say pure bs. they sell to almost anyone and recently they sold russia advance ships. does this mean they might change their minds on selling weapons to china?

Since a low-key Christmas Eve announcement of a French sale of assault ships to Russia, high-level government deal makers have boasted about the multimillion-euro deal like it was a soccer game triumph. “France wins,” declares the Web site for the Élysée Palace.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[rhino123]

1) Politics
2) Afraid that China would reverse engineer their product and sold to third countries
3) To hinder and delay China's growth because she is growing too fast and would threaten the West
4) US's interference into any sales (look to Israel's AWAC plane sales)

And also we must look to China side in this formula on why the west didn't want to sell weapons to China... those things like small arms to artillery, China didn't want. Anything too high tech like ballistic missiles and aircraft carrier - China wanted but the west wouldn't sell (they don't sell these to any countries too... even the ship sold to Russia was not really in military standard - I believe).

However in recent lights, it seemed that selling whole product (by the west) to China was out of the question for the above mentioned reason, but selling high tech components that could be used in weaponries had already been carried out by some western countries... I think, Finland (not too sure) is selling China some sort of sensor or components that can greatly improve the accuracy of missiles developed in CHina.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Western sanctions actually made it possible for China to indigenise arms. It is not entirely a bad thing.

 

[rhino123]

Western sanctions actually made it possible for China to indigenise arms. It is not entirely a bad thing.

No it is not a bad thing. But it certainly would speed things up if China was to get the modern western weaponries and know how to build them. In the past, when the chinese had assess to Russian weapons, their military industries are leapfrogging from almost nothing to quite modern ability.

Oh well...

 

[Spartan95]

if its about human right, i would say pure bs. they sell to almost anyone and recently they sold russia advance ships. does this mean they might change their minds on selling weapons to china?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The US is unlikely to change its position about arms sales to PRC. And I think the real reason is so that PLA won't know the strengths and weaknesses of US weapons systems, from which PLA can than devise ways to overcome these weapons systems.

The EP-3 that was in PLA hands for a few days after it was down in Hainan was bad enough for the US military. They really don't want to sell their high end weapons to PLA from which the weaknesses can be figured out.

And since the US won't change their position, EU will likely have to follow suit even though they would love to sell weapons to keep their defence industry going. However, given the advances in PRC's military industrial base, I'm not sure if there are a lot of things that the Europeans can offer which PRC would still in interested in. Certainly not their EF-2000, A400, MBTs, ships or subs.

 

[rhino123]

Also I believe that China as was no longer interested in weapon systems as a whole. They are more interested in component wise purchases. By that I mean, if the West wanted to sell sensors and components that could make existing missile more potent, China would be very interested. And if the West wanted to sell China their aircraft engines, I think China would be very interested.

And I think the West are also moving along this route too... remember the Finland (I think this was the country) who are selling electronic packages to China that could actually improve in accuracy or efficiency or something to that effect for Chinese missiles.

Plus I think Germany had been selling vehicle engines to China, these engines could be dual use - either for civilian vehicle or military vehicles.

So as you see it... it might not be the west not wanting to sell China weaponries, but China had move from buying whole system to individual components.

 

[armchairwarrior]

EU is considering removing the arms embargo imposed on China as a step to improve relations with Beijing

A European Union arms embargo clamped on China in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square crackdown could be lifted in early 2011, Brussels sources told Thursday's edition of France's Le Figaro daily.

The lifting of the embargo on all lethal weapons "could happen very quickly," a source close to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told the paper.

It said that the embargo was considered a slap in the face for the world's second largest economic bloc as well as militarily ineffective by the EU as China increasingly builds its own weapons.

A confidential report presented to the last European Union summit that ended on December 17 described the embargo as "a major obstacle" to Europe-China security and foreign policy cooperation.

As a result "the EU should draw the practical conclusions and go ahead," the report said.

english .ahram .org. eg/NewsContent/2/9/2899/World/International/EU-could-end-China-arms-embargo-early-.aspx


I have no idea how credible the paper is.

 

[Scratch]

The talk of lifting the embargo comes up once in a while lately. Especially France is keen on getting this lifted. So it doesn't really supprise me it came up in a french paper. But that decision will have to go through national governments, I personally don't think this will happen too silently.
And in the end, it's just that everbody is keen on some quick short term money, and maybe a little more economic benefits as a reward. Europe won't pay the money to support it's defense industry on it's own any more. So the stuff is sold abroad to keep the jobs and the tech.

 

[antiterror13]

I don't see many weapons produce in EU would interest China ... in some areas China is already more advanced (supercomputer, radar, etc). Perhaps lifting embargo is just a political gesture from EU to China which EU needs China desperately now

Again I don't see massive arms buying from China

 

[Geographer]

China's armed forces would be very interested in purchasing helicopters, transport aircraft like the A400M, and airplane engines from Rolls-Royce and Snecma. Their arms industry has major deficiencies in these four areas while Europe is very strong in them. Eurocopter is the top helicopter company in the world, and the EH101 and NH90 would be very useful to China. But lifting the arms embargo is years off.

By the way, the Western (US and EU) arms embargo was imposed after the Tienanmen Square crackdown. Before that, the West was happy to sell some, not all, weapons to the PRC in order to encourage the split between China and the Soviet Union. So human rights was not a factor then, and it is not a factor now. It is all politics, the politics of delaying China's military strength.