"I'm not going to play that game," Christa Nickels, the chairwoman of the parliamentary human rights commission, was quoted as saying.

In a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in China on Monday, Schroeder indicated he will work towards lifting the European Union embargo against arms sales to China, a German government spokesman said.

That would make Germany the second major European country after France to encourage the lifting of the ban, which was imposed in 1989 after the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Nickels said Shroeder's promise was, besides being unnecessary, "an error, not only because of the human rights situation in China but also because of the tense situation between China and Taiwan."

The foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Christian Democrats, Friedbertg Pflueger, criticized an initiative he said had been taken "without consulting the European Union."

Even within the governing majority, Schroder's remarks have stirred up dissension. Wolfgang Gerhardt, leader of the Liberal party parliamentary group, said "it is the wrong time, in view of Chinese threats against Taiwan, to be opening the way to a lifting of the European arms embargo. Germany should not be playing a prominent role in this domain."

Schroeder's own socialist party remained discreet about the arms sale proposal, but some members have criticized another of the chancellor's promises -- to support a bid by the Siemens corporation to export a nuclear reprocessing plant to China.

WAR.WIRE