French Military Sales Must Be Down

For Saddam to get captured in his tiny little hole must have really been a blow to Jacques Chirac, as he is now going to push for a lifting of the arms embargo on China.

He claims that the embargo, placed in response to Tiananmen Square, "makes no more sense today."

I guess we really shouldn't be too surprised. Human rights violations are not of great concern to Chirac, unless he can somehow figure out a way to pin them on the United States. He thought that Saddam was fine, and now he is implying that China has reformed its violating ways.

Very little has really changed in China. There are still rampant human rights violations taking place. Look at the current media articles coming out of the region. Remember, this is the country that still has forced population control. But there are certainly no human rights violations taking place....

If Chirac wants to lift the embargo, that's fine. Some things have changed since 1989. Maybe there is a valid reason to lift the embargo (although it would almost certainly intensify the Far Eastern arms race). A debate would not necessarily be a bad thing. But in any discussion, there must still be a recognition and debate about the state of human rights in China. Anything less would be intellectually dishonest.

Chirac seems to be once again demonstrating that he is more interested in selling weapons to whomever, rather than holding true to his rhetoric on human rights.