Mick Hartley

More on the arms-to-China row, as Bush arrives in Europe:

A row over European arms sales to China threatens to overshadow George Bush’s “peacemaking” trip to Europe this week – with Tony Blair caught in the middle.

The United States president arrived in Brussels last night for a five-day visit that has been billed by both European and US diplomats as a chance for the two sides to put the bitter dispute over Iraq behind them.

The president today will offer limited concessions over global warming and tonight he will dine with Jacques Chirac, the French president.

Meanwhile, the EU will announce an office in Baghdad to train Iraqi judges.

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s former US ambassador, predicted amicable talks over Iran even though the US has expressed impatience with EU diplomatic efforts to talk Tehran out of developing nuclear weapons. “The Americans are prepared to give diplomacy a chance,” he said.

The issue of military sales to China will be much harder to fudge. The EU, pushed by France, is set to lift an embargo imposed in 1989. US officials including Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s chief of staff, see the EU move as a fundamental challenge to US interests. Mr Bush has promised to defend democratic Taiwan from China.

China claims Taiwan is a renegade province, and Beijing yesterday condemned US support for Taiwan. America’s stance on Taiwan “concerns China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security, and the Chinese government and people firmly oppose it,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

Richard Fisher, a prominent Washington analyst and commentator on Chinese affairs, said the EU move was a serious provocation to the president’s pro-democracy agenda.

“As both Japan and the US begin to seriously prepare for a real war on the Taiwan Strait, it is simply sickening that European leaders are proposing to take any steps that would help to enable a dictatorship to kill democracy,” said Mr Fisher.