No deal, China

Dallas Morning News: The European Union's reported decision to delay selling weapons and military equipment to China is not only the right call -- if a surprising one -- but also a significant diplomatic victory for the Bush administration, which lobbied the EU hard on the issue. And it is a black eye for China, whose imperialist ambitions toward Taiwan turned European politicians around on the issue.
Over the weekend, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said that China's recent passage of an anti-secession law, under the terms of which China granted itself authority to invade Taiwan if the island nation declared its formal independence from the mainland, had created "a difficult political environment" for the planned arms sales. No doubt. Beijing could not have telegraphed more clearly its willingness to use European arms against Taiwan.
That really means using the weaponry against the United States, which has long pledged to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack. Congress has been especially adamant that our European allies had no business selling NATO arms to the communist Chinese regime. It's good to see that Europe got the message.
Arms embargo
The Europeans will no doubt wait for tensions to cool before trying again. It's important, though, to remember why there's an arms embargo on China in the first place. In 1989, the Chinese dictatorship showed the raw brutality at the heart of its regime when it unleashed soldiers on unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. The West imposed an arms embargo as punishment.
China calls linking the arms-sales issue to the anti-secession law unreasonable. It is wrong. The essential character of its one-party dictatorship has not changed -- the anti-secession law merely formalizes Beijing's aggressive intentions toward its peaceful democratic neighbor. Normal countries don't shoot their own peacefully gathered citizens. Normal countries don't threaten war against small neighboring states that do not threaten them.
When China's rulers choose to turn their great nation into a normal country, then we can talk about selling them weapons.