The European Union is not yet ready to lift an arms embargo on China, Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said just before the start of a summit with Chinese leaders today.
"We are working assiduously but...the time is not right to lift the embargo," Bot told reporters. The Netherlands currently holds the EU presidency. Asked if the ban, imposed in 1989, could be lifted next year, Bot replied: "I hope so for them."
The embargo was expected to take centre stage at the EU-China summit, with a number of countries, headed by France and Germany, pressing for an end of the ban which they see as a relic of the Cold War.
The United States, which sees China as a long-term strategic rival, has lobbied the EU against lifting the ban, citing a potential threat to Taiwan and to US interests in Asia.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told French radio that the embargo might be removed in the first six months of next year, when Luxembourg holds the EU chair.
But others, including the EU's executive Commission, have called for greater improvements in China's human rights record before the embargo is eased. They also want a new EU code of conduct on arms exports to ensure greater transparency.
The ban was imposed in the aftermath of the brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
Chinese state media reported Premier Wen Jiabao as saying on the eve of his trip that Beijing would not set off on a shopping spree for European weapons if the ban was lifted.
Chinese flag carrier Air China Ltd. signed a deal to buy 23 Airbus aircraft worth $1.3 billion on Monday during a visit by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a sign that Beijing was not directly linking trade deals with ending the embargo.
New EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in an article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal Europe that the EU must tread carefully in handling what he called the continuing rise of Chinese economic power.
"The new China is a fact. Our aim should be to engage and influence, not to see China as a strategic threat," he wrote.
The prospect of China flooding Europe with cheap textiles next year after the end of textile quotas will be another major theme of the summit.
Mandelson warned European leaders against seeking national trade wins with China to the detriment of a common EU position.
"We need a collective and united response. We will be infinitely more persuasive in relations with China if we establish a clear collective strategy than if individual nations pursue narrowly defined national interests," he said.