At last: France is making a commitment to free trade. Unfortunately, it involves selling arms to China. President Chirac has ordered a review of the ban on arm sales to China imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. This would enable France to grab a share of the £2 billion-a-year market for military equipment in the world’s most populous country, and so take advantage of the fact that the United States intends to stick to the embargo. Following Chirac’s lead, Tony Blair has indicated that Britain, too, may lift the ban on arms sales.
This column does not usually call for trade boycotts, but when it comes to selling arms to China it is prepared to make an exception. The United States is right and France and Britain are wrong. This is not a case of selling the odd secondhand and — to us — obsolete tank to a democratic African republic hemmed in by malignant regimes.
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