In the coming months, if not weeks, the European Union is set to lift the arms embargo it has imposed on China for the 15 years since the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators near Tiananmen Square.

It is a diplomatic gesture, and a very big one, clearly intended to demonstrate that relations are back to normal and China is no longer to be punished for that shocking abuse of human rights and disdain for the lives of idealistic students who took to the streets in 1989.