EU May Lift Ban on Arms Sales to China. I suppose one can blame Bush for this, and the Americans' hands aren't particularly clean with regard to selling weapons, but this still doesn't sound like a particularly bright idea. Is it really in Europe's interest to see a better armed China?

Update

Paris is celebrating France's ties to China because

Hu Jintao's first state visit to France, which begins Monday, coincides with the 40th anniversary of the two countries' diplomatic relations.

As part of the country's "Year of China" promotion, officials closed Paris' grand avenue, the Champs-Élysées, on Saturday afternoon for a huge parade dominated by a dancing dragon — the first time the avenue has been taken over by an intrinsically non-French event since German troops marched down it during World War II.

The parade, sponsored in part by China, included hundreds of Chinese citizens and thousands of Chinese émigrés living in and around Paris. The only things missing, though, were firecrackers, banned for security reasons, and adherents of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement that the Chinese government has banned. The group's request to join the festivities was denied.

Chalk the Gallic eagerness up to China's market potential and its emerging role as a strategic node in the multipolar world that both France and China hope will eventually supplant the world's sole-superpower status quo...

There are other sour notes. France's Nobel Prize-winning author, Gao Xingjian, whose works have been banned in China, was not invited to the Paris Book Salon, which is featuring a special section on Chinese writers as part of the "Year of China" campaign.

So it's not about loving the Chinese as much as disliking the Americans.