China pressures EU to lift arms ban

BRUSSELS, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- China is pushing the European Union to end a 15-year-old arms embargo.

The issue of lifting an arms embargo is expected to be one of the more contentious issues to be discussed in the upcoming EU-China Summit to be held next week.

"If the arms embargo is not lifted ... this will not be beneficial to sound development of future cooperation," said Wang Shaoxin, spokesperson at the Chinese Mission to the EU.

The arms embargo has been on the EU agenda for months now, but certain member states such as Britain and Netherlands are cautious about lifting the ban on the arms embargo.

In recent statements, the U.S. government has repeated a longtime stance in favor of the arms embargo on China.