The European Union's new ambassador to Japan denied speculation the EU may remove its arms export ban against China in the near future, and that even if that were to happen, the bloc wouldn't automatically begin selling weapons to Beijing.
During a recent interview with The Japan Times, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut pointed out that the question of the ban itself is separate from whether the EU will actually begin exporting arms to Beijing.
"At the moment there are no plans at all to lift the arms embargo, but I think sometimes we see a confusion of two separate issues," he said. "One is the question of whether the European Union should sell arms to China and the other one is an arms embargo which is a political declaration dating back to 1989."