During the Sino-European summit this month in the Hague, Europe refused to lift the 15-year-old ban but indicated that it could do so within six months if member states could agree on a code of conduct on weapons sales.

China has repeatedly denied any interest in acquiring European weapon systems, arguing instead that the embargo was political discrimination and an expression of Europe's refusal to deal with China on an equal basis.

"To demand the lifting of arms sales embargo does not mean that China would like to buy advanced weapons from Europe," Premier Wen Jiabao told journalists at the summit.

"Rather, it is aimed to oppose political discrimination against China," he said.

The embargo, imposed following Beijing's bloody quelling of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, did not conform to improving Sino-EU relations nor to the stated hopes by both sides to build a "strategic partnership," Wen said.

Analysts said Wen was choosing his words carefully.

"China is doing what governments and politicians always do. They are playing with semantics," Robert Karniol, Asia specialist for Jane's Defense Weekly, told AFP.

"When they say they don't want any weapons, they are talking about things that actually shoot.

"China has not been interested in European weapons platforms, and to a lesser extent weapons systems. What they are looking at are sub-systems, like radars and sonars."

There is plenty of dual-use technology and other military hardware, including engines, naval systems, avionics, radars, sonars and command and control systems, that China would like if the embargo were lifted, he said.

"If China could get the EU arms embargo lifted, they will bring pressure to Russia, which also has some restrictions on its arms sales and technology transfers to China," said Arthur Ding, a specialist on China's People's Liberation Army at Taiwan's Institute of International Relations.

"If the EU lifts its embargo, that could pressure Russia to lift its restrictions."

Purchases of European technology could also be used to upgrade China's existing Russian weapons systems, he said.

With Europe and the United States maintaining arms and high technology sanctions on China, Russia has been China's main arms supplier since 1989.

It has sold its neighbour billions of dollars worth of advanced fighter jets, advanced destroyers, submarines and other weapons systems.

"Even if the embargo is lifted, China might not buy a lot of arms from Europe because its main goal is to build up its own technology," Ding said.

"China's emphasis is on technology transfer to build up their own capabilities."

This means that China could be satisfied with just procuring a few weapons systems or sub-systems in order to study the technology and see if it could be reproduced, he said.

Despite the embargo, China has still been able to procure weapons and weapons technology from Europe in recent years.

This includes helicopters and missiles from France, advanced radars from Britain and diesel engines for their submarines from other European manufacturers, Ding said.

European press reports said that China procured some 280 million dollars of weapons-related technology from Europe in 2002 alone, with half the sales coming from France.

Even the United States, which has been one of the most vocal opponents of lifting the EU embargo, has managed to sell weapons and weapons-related hardware to China despite its own sanctions, Jane's Karniol said.

"The US managed to find a way to get around its own sanctions on China during the last decade and sold jet engines for China's J-8 trainer/light attack aircraft," Karniol said.

"China then turned around and sold the planes to Myanmar and Pakistan, both of which are sanctioned by the United States. So if you really want to find a way to get around these sanctions, you can find a way."

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