Europe to China: "Cool it for a while, will ya?"

The European Union has decided to keep its arms embargo on China for a while longer. United States' pressure alone was unable to achieve this change of heart. Instead, the EU reconsidered its plan to lift the embargo because of China's passage of the anti-secession law which threatened the use of force against Taiwan. Here's what an unnamed senior European official said:

"Europe wants to move forward on the embargo, but the recent actions by China have made things a lot more complex. The timeline has become more difficult. The timeline is going to have to slip."

So there you have it. It's not that Europe doesn't want to sell arms to China and it's not that they won't eventually. They're just going to wait until things cool down a bit and people forget the threats China has made against Taiwan. Then the Europeans will argue that it's safe to sell weapons to the dictators in Beijing. The sales will be made and one day European weapons will be used by China's military to kill American military personnel.

-tdr