President Obama issued a waiver loosening Tiananmen arms sanctions for C-130 military transports for China a day after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to an imprisoned Chinese dissident who dedicated the prize this past weekend to the victims of the 1989 crackdown.
Chinese state-run news media on Monday hailed the White House waiver announcement as a sign Washington is moving to lift the 11-year-old arms embargo.
However, White House National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer said the waiver issued on Saturday will not allow C-130s sales. "Under this announcement, we are not selling any aircraft to anyone," he stated in an e-mail.
Mr. Obama's letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing the waiver states that it is lifting a ban on "temporary munitions export licenses" for C-130s that currently is banned by the fiscal 1990 Foreign Relations Act. The law bars sales to China of "any defense item on the U.S. Munitions Control list" unless "the president makes a report" waiving the restriction.
Mr. Hammer said the waiver is intended to assist companies in Southeast Asia that use C-130s for cleaning up oil spills. The waiver will permit C-130s to land in China to refuel, or take on chemicals used in dispersing oil spills, after first obtaining a U.S. export license, he said.
Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, said the lack of any urgent oil spill emergency and the timing of the waiver so close to the Nobel award "sends a mixed signal to the Chinese leadership and undercuts President Obama's call for Liu Xiaobo's release, especially in light of the June 4 genesis of the U.S. export ban."
The waiver announcement and China's view of it also raised concerns among some specialists who view it as a step by the Obama administration toward eventually lifting the arms embargo.
"The C-130 proposal is obviously a toe in the water and, as such, should be rejected," said John Bolton, former undersecretary of state for international security. "This administration seems to have two messages about America for foreign governments: weak and weaker."
Edward Timperlake, a former Pentagon technology security official, agreed: "This will ultimately undermine Tiananmen sanctions because the Chinese state-controlled media is hyping that as their objective."
"A very courageous Chinese citizen just received the Nobel Prize, and his wife has been placed under house arrest — announcing this waiver now makes a mockery of any administration pretense of supporting human rights, regardless of the expedient environmental fig-leaf justification," Mr. Timperlake said.
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