Europe must not arm China

A South Korean student holds an effigy of US President George W. Bush during an anti-US rally in Seoul yesterday. Visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed her appreciation for South Korea's dispatch of its troops to the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. PHOTO: AFP

"It is the United States, not Europe, that is defending the Pacific," Rice said. She spoke in Seoul, the penultimate stop on her weeklong tour of Asia.

South Korea, Japan and the United States are all Pacific powers and all contribute resources to keep the Asia-Pacific region stable, Rice said.

The European Union may soon lift an arms embargo on China that was imposed after the deadly 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Lifting the embargo would allow sale of technology and weapons that China badly wants to modernise its creaky military. China has recently gone on a military spending spree that Rice said concerns the United States.

"The European Union should do nothing to contribute," to the possibility that Chinese forces might turn European technology on Americans, Rice said after meetings with the South Korean president and foreign minister.

Earlier in Seoul she ruled out separate talks between the United States and North Korea but said direct dialogue would take place as part of six-party nuclear negotiations.

She also called on Pyongyang to make a "strategic decision" to abandon it nuclear ambitions, but said Washington would not use its military to resolve the current nuclear standoff.

Rice has earlier said that China's recent statements about a possible invasion of Taiwan should give the Europeans pause. China passed a law this month codifying its intention to use military force against Taiwan should the island declare formal independence.

Rice said she would raise US objections to the Taiwan development with Chinese officials in two days of talks, along with long-standing concerns over Chinese human rights practices and violations of intellectual property rights.

Rice will also ask China for more help to persuade communist North Korea to return to international nuclear disarmament talks.

The Pyongyang government of Kim Jong Il announced last month what the United States has long suspected: It has already built at least one nuclear weapon.

The United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China began a joint diplomatic effort with North Korea last year aimed at persuading the country to give up its nuclear program.