Vodkapundit - Europocrisy

Europocrisy

Posted by Stephen Green · 6 March 2005

Tom Friedman has a great angle on European weapons sales to China:

There is an obvious compromise that Mr. Bush could put on the table that would defuse this whole issue. Mr. Bush should simply say to France, Germany and their E.U. partners that America has absolutely no objection to Europeans' selling arms to China - on one condition: that they sell arms to themselves first. That's right, the U.S. should support the export to China of any defense system that the Europeans buy for their own armies first. Buy one, sell one.

I got so excited reading that, my keyboard appeared to levitate. Of course, Friedman's point is a moot one. We don't (never did, never will) have that kind of sway with Europe, so Friedman's formulation is much more cute than it is practical.

He continues:

I am not part of the bash-China lobby. I believe that the U.S. needs to engage China, not isolate it, and work with it so that it takes its rightful place on the world stage. I believe China is largely a force for stability in Asia, not instability. But one reason for that is that the U.S. has countered any other impulses from Beijing by maintaining a stable balance of power among China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan - a balance that has helped the entire region prosper. The sale of advanced European weapons to China can only weaken that balance.

I fully agree. There's just one little problem. A policy of engagement is clearly the most desirable policy for us. But as Europe insists on doing the bad things Friedman describes, engagement become less and less practical, and containment (or worse) becomes more and more necessary.

Europeans chide us for not relying enough on diplomatic means, while doing their damnedest to pull the rug out from under our diplomats.

Friedman didn't spell that out for you, because it wasn't in the scope of his column (generous take), or because he doesn't see the dichotomy (less generous take), or because he still wants you to think Europe is right and we're wrong (which some might say, but I won't - not after reading this column).

But filling in the blanks is one thing the blogosphere does and does well.

Comments

My take on Friedman:
Not a dumb guy who generally is on the right side of things. I can forgive him for his occasional slips into lunacy, as his heart is generally in the right place.

Posted by: Seth at March 6, 2005 11:46 PM

Oh my, it's a disgrace. Good thing the US never sold arms to anyone.

Posted by: Dutchie at March 7, 2005 05:44 AM

With the rising standard of living in Europe and the increasing economic stability of the Eurozone economy, I'd be surprised if Europeans even consider diplomatic actions other than their own...

Posted by: J. T. at March 7, 2005 05:51 AM

@Dutchie
well at least the US doesn't sell themselves as the 'PEace power'.
The ruling party in Germany
has billboards saying 'Germany - peacepower ' a play on words of superpower. trying to imply they are a morally superior superpower.
Such moral hypocrisy. Yeah the US is guilty of moral hypocrisy as well... but the Euros are supposed to be more 'advanced' than we are.

Posted by: amiexpat at March 7, 2005 06:52 AM

yes the US has sold weapons to people...

like the south koreans, the japanese, the brits, all of Nato, etc

we sold/gave away a bunch of manpads and other small arms to mujis 20 years ago to stop the soviets... the EU wants to sell full up large scale weapons systems to a country that wants to be a world superpower and disrupt the current stable situation.

there's a difference. we sell modern weapon systems to a tiny natio threatened with annihilation by its 10x larger neighbour and former civil war opponent. the EU wants to sell the equipment necessary to take taiwan by force to a tyrannicalauthoritarian regime... morally equivalent of course!

Posted by: hey at March 7, 2005 10:22 AM

Not just that.

If the shiny new toys give the Chinese the courage to move on Taiwan and the US comes to the defense of the Taiwanese, we'll have european weapons being used against US personnel.

That's not going to do a lot to improve transatlantic relations, folks. The thing is, Europeans are definately smart enough to realize this- but it's pretty clear that France wants to re-create the old Cold-war scenario of two superpowers in balance, which would give France the ability to influence both of them by screwing with the balance.

What I want to know is why the hell the rest of Europe is going along with it.

Posted by: rosignol at March 7, 2005 04:07 PM