But at the start of a two-day trip to mark 30 years of China-EU relations, External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Beijing's human rights record and its passage of a tough law aimed at Taiwan were not helping its cause.

She also said on Wednesday the 25-member bloc hoped to resolve a spat with China over textile trade without resorting to World Trade Organization safeguards.

"Lifting the embargo will of course be easier if the climate is right. Above all, we need to help persuade our public opinion ... that China is making concrete steps to improve human rights," Ferrero-Waldner told a news conference.

The ban was imposed following China's military crackdown on Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrators in 1989.

Luxembourg, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, has said it wants the issue resolved by the end of its term in June, but that has seemed less likely since China passed a law in March that gives it legal basis to use force against Taiwan should the self-governing island secede.

"Certainly the anti-secession law has not been helpful with regard to the question of lifting the arms embargo. Again, it's about the right climate that has to be made," Ferrero-Waldner said.

China objects to linking the embargo with its rights record, but Ferrero-Waldner said actions such as releasing dissidents imprisoned for their role in the Tiananmen protests would help sway opinion in the European Parliament.

She also said Beijing should ratify the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, a UN covenant on the basic rights of individuals and nations including rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of assembly and rights to equality before the law.

During meetings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, the two sides will also address China's clothing and textile exports, which have surged since a global quota regime ended on January 1.

The European Commission has opened an investigation into the huge rise in nine categories of clothing and textile imports that will last up to 60 days, an inquiry China says runs counter to the spirit of free trade.

"The situation created by the unprecedented surge of Chinese exports obliges us to take action," Ferrero-Waldner said.

"But at the same time we want to find a satisfactory solution in consultations with the Chinese and we want to avoid recourse to the safeguard measures under the WTO."

Under the terms of China's 2001 entry into the WTO, Beijing agreed members could cap imports of Chinese clothing and textiles at 7.5 percent above the previous year until 2008, if they demonstrated their firms were hurting.

But Commerce Minister Bo Xilai has said invoking the clause in this case would be discriminatory and that China's textile exports would slow by the summer thanks to tax and tariff steps taken voluntarily by Beijing.

China made 17 percent of the world's textiles and clothing in 2003, but the WTO expects that market share to rise to more than 50 percent within the next three years.