This isn't good:

France renewed its call for lifting the EU arms embargo against China on Tuesday, saying the punitive measure has long become obsolete and unable to reflect the current relationship between the European bloc and China....

In response to a question on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's demand for the removal during his recent visit to China, a Foreign Ministry official said that the embargo is out of date and does not conform to the EU's policy to build a full strategic partnership with China.

France stands for continued consultations among EU countries and will strive for the lifting of the arms embargo in light of a decision by the EU summit meeting in 2004, the official said....

The French Foreign Ministry official said the lifting of the embargo will be a "political message," which does not mean that France seeks a drastic increase in its arms export to China.

Chirac had angled for years to get out from under the EU-ban on arms exports to China. Not only was there money to be made in selling advanced military equipment, but lifting the ban almost guarantees the French increased access to China's rapidly expanding civil aviation market. Of course, the conditions that led to the ban--imposed after the Tienanmen Square massacre--have not changed in the least. The Chinese people have little more political freedom today than they did nearly 20 years ago, if any. What they have is economic freedom. And that economic freedom has apparently made China an irresistible market for European defense companies starved by declining national defense budgets throughout the EU.

If the Europeans are to lift this embargo without any concession or reform on the part of Beijing in return, it will put the lie to Sarkozy's oft repeated claim that his foreign policy would be a "moral foreign policy." There is no moral case for selling weapons to China, and neither does Europe have a strategic interest in lifting the ban. The motivation is purely economic--and decidedly amoral.