Toward a More Robust Approach to Export Controls?
Enzi Hearings Today Could Mark Watershed for U.S. Security
(Washington, D.C.): Today, Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), chairman of the
Senate Banking
Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance, will convene a hearing to examine processes
for regulating sensitive U.S. dual-use exports. Recent revelations of Chinese theft and/or
diversions of nuclear technology are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg
urgent need for the sort of oversight and legislative action Senator Enzi’s hearing may portend.
Despite the object lesson the PRC’s legal and illegal technology acquisition operations
provide,
there is always a danger that new legislative initiatives in this area will make matters
worse.
Ever since the Export Administration Act expired in 1994,
there have been periodic efforts to
reauthorize it in ways that would seriously weaken the export control regime.
Administration has, in addition, done immense harm in this area with its unilateral decontrol
initiatives and with its destruction of the invaluable Coordinating Committee on Multilateral
Export Controls (COCOM). Senator Enzi’s subcommittee must ensure that its hearings
and
any legislation that emerges from its deliberations do not make matters worse in the
future.
‘The Rope With Which to Hang Us’
The need for something more than the interim, minimalist licensing and review of controllable
items currently administered under the International Economic Powers Act (IEPA) — which
Senator Enzi has correctly described as “a minimally acceptable stopgap” — is made clear by a
new, breathtaking study of U.S. exports to the People’s Republic of China undertaken by the
Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Proliferation.
study reveals that between 1988 and
1998, “the U.S. Commerce Department approved more than $15 billion worth of
strategically sensitive U.S. exports to the People’s Republic of China.”
Consider a sampler of the Wisconsin Project’s findings (emphasis added throughout) about the
nature of the U.S. technology transfers to China over the past decade — and their strategic
implications:
- “The China National Nuclear Corporation was licensed to receive American computer and
imaging equipment for uranium prospecting. This company then helped Iran prospect
for
uranium that U.S. intelligence believes will be used to make nuclear weapons.”
- “The China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation was licensed to receive
American
equipment useful for building China’s new C-801 and C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles.
This
company then exported the missiles to Iran where, according to the U.S. naval
commander in the Persian Gulf, they threaten U.S. ships and personnel.”
- “The China National Electronics Import-Export Corporation was licensed to receive
American
equipment useful for developing radar. This company later sold Iran a powerful military
radar that could someday threaten American pilots.”
- “The Chinese Academy of Sciences was licensed to receive American computer equipment
to
help develop a nuclear fission reactor. The Academy then exported the reactor to Iran,
which U.S. intelligence believes is developing nuclear weapons.”
- “Equipment to manufacture and test semiconductors: 593 approvals worth $241.8 million.
Used to produce critical components for avionics, missiles, torpedoes, smart munitions,
fuses and secure communications equipment.”
- “High-speed oscilloscopes: 1,653 approvals worth $131.3 million. Used to record
data from
nuclear weapon tests, to design nuclear weapon firing circuits, and to develop missile
guidance, control and tracking systems.”
- “Equipment for controlling high-accuracy machine tools: 294 approvals worth $111.9
million.
Used to produce precision parts needed for nuclear weapons and long-range
missiles.”
- “Vibration testing equipment: 14 approvals worth $5.4 million. Used to test
nuclear
weapons, missiles, and a variety of equipment to ensure combat reliability in situations
of sudden shock, impact or rapid acceleration.”
- “American equipment was also approved for the National University of Defense
Technology,
which trains PLA personnel in weapons design; the University of Electronic
Science and
Technology, which develops advanced radar and technology for military
aircraft; and the
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which specializes in the development
of
missile technology.”
In addition to this shocking evidence of what amounts to U.S. support for the People’s
Liberation Army’s ominous modernization efforts, the Wisconsin Project report notes that, until
1993, China was “effectively denied access to high-performance computers.” Then, in an effort to
curry political favor with Silicon Valley’s computer industry, the Clinton Administration began
significantly easing export controls on powerful computers. In early 1996, the Administration
actually permitted the sale, among others, to China of powerful supercomputers — forty-nine of
which are believed to have found their way into the Chinese nuclear weapons complex.
Recommendations for a ‘New’ EAA
Coming as it does at a time when the deleterious effect on the national security caused by lax
export controls is becoming increasingly obvious, Sen. Enzi’s 14 April hearing offers an
opportunity to consider specific actions that could resuscitate and strengthen the Export
Administration Act. Such actions could include the following:
- Prevent foreign purchasers of concern and their intermediaries from exporting
equipment and technologies acquired from defense contractors. In this connection, end
the fiction that exports to Hong Kong are somehow safer than exports to China.
- Create higher monetary and jail penalties for diverters and illegal
exports.
- Revise Executive Order 12981 signed by President Clinton on December
6, 1995. This
directive requires that the Departments of Defense and State, as well as such entities as the
National Labs, provide the Secretary of Commerce with a recommendation to approve or deny
a license application within 30 days. Most relevant national security-related
departments and
agencies cannot respond within that time frame. The requirements of Executive Order
12981 must be eliminated so as to ensure that national security — not artificial time
constraints — drives the process for approving or denying sensitive license
referrals.
- Require all relevant U.S. agencies to invest in commercial databases regarding
technology, end-users, and advanced/military applications.
- Establish a specific section of EAA concerning advanced unconventional
weaponry, e.g.,
lasers (high and low powered), radio-frequency weapons, electro-magnetic pulse generators,
etc.
- Update computer and telecommunications controls to address the threat of parallel
processing — coupled with the increased ability for the proliferation of nuclear weapon
technology.
- Give the intelligence community the right to vote in all interagency export control
committees. Their input can be restricted to technological and diversion risks and
fire-walled
from the details of the U.S. exporter.
- Require mandatory training standards and employment standards for all U.S.
government participants in the export licensing process. Additionally, institute a
mandatory code of ethics for participants.
- Reconstitute the interagency pre-screening process known as COMEX at
once. Give it
the right to veto visits by foreign nationals to sensitive Defense and Energy Department and
NASA facilities.
- Create a permanent professional team of inspectors to conduct on-site visits to
ensure
U.S. technology is not being misused or retransferred. Link access for on-site
pre-license/post shipment visits by U.S. government personnel to granting of technology import
benefits to foreign nations.
The Bottom Line
Sen. Enzi’s promising efforts should be complemented by oversight hearings by the
Congress’
Armed Services Committees and its defense appropriations subcommittee aimed at
examining the real — and growing — cost to the U.S. military that is
incurred as the qualitative
edge upon which it relies is steadily eroded through ill-considered technology transfers. In this
connection, it is instructive to recall the impact of Toshiba’s sale of advanced machine tools to the
Soviet Union in the 1980s. For a few tens of millions of dollars, the Japanese company and its
Norwegian partners gave the Kremlin the capability to reduce dramatically the noise signature of
its submarine force. This had the effect of degrading the U.S. Navy’s acoustic anti-submarine
warfare capabilities to an extent that the Reagan Pentagon estimated would take over a billion
dollars to restore to pre-sale levels.
Needless to say, such unfunded costs — coming as they do in the midst of
the increasingly
evident shortfalls in investment in the present and future readiness of the U.S. military
(exacerbated by the ongoing, hugely expensive combat operations in Serbia) — must be
factored
into decisions about whether and how to control the exports of sensitive dual-use
technologies. The Nation can simply no longer afford to make such decisions
exclusively on the
basis of the parochial interest of the affected American companies.
House select committee
chaired by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) will, when finally released to the public in a declassified form,
provide abundant evidence of the gravity of the technology diversion/theft problem.
‘Penny Foolish, Pound Insane’: Clinton’s Export
Control Bill Will Abet Global Proliferation, Increased Defense Costs (
1994).
with David Tarbell of the
Technology Security Directorate, DoD; Hon. R. Roger Majak, Asst. Secretary of Commerce for
Export Administration; James W. Jarret, president of Intel China; an Larry E. Christensen, Vice
President, Vastera, Inc.
What’s Good For Silicon Graphics Is Not
Necessarily Good For America: Some Supercomputer Sales Imperil U.S. Security
(No. 97-D
102, 21 July 1997).
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