CANBERRA, Australia, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Australia has declined to join the U.S. push to dissuade the European Union from lifting its 15-year arms embargo on China.
U.S. officials hoped to lobby together with Japan and Australia to keep the embargo, but the Howard government refused in what probably the most serious rift between Washington and Canberra in many years, The Australian reported Sunday.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who just wrapped up meetings with his European counterparts, will not oppose the EU lifting the arms embargo, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Europeans say they will meet Downer's request not to sell arms that would destabilize the military balance in the Pacific by imposing strict rules on what they sell to China.
U.S. and Japanese officials believe any such rules would be full of loopholes and ineffective.
"Australia is important because it's a bellwether of how well the U.S. coalition will hold," one U.S. official said.
