House Votes to Curb Exports to Soviets, China

Delivering its first formal verdict on last week’s U.S.-Soviet summit, the House on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to block future high-technology exports to the Soviet Union unless the blockade of Lithuania is lifted and Soviet Jews are allowed to emigrate.

The House then voted by similarly huge margins of nearly 4-1 to cut off exports of space satellites to China and to limit that nation’s ability to sell abroad sophisticated goods it imports from the United States.

Both votes were amendments to a bill that would make it much easier for U.S. high-tech industries to sell products to Eastern Europe and other Communist and formerly Communist countries. The Senate has yet to consider similar legislation.

After approving the rebukes to the Soviets and Chinese, the House plowed through a long list of lesser amendments before voting final passage 312-86.

The overall bill was opposed on the floor by conservative Republicans, although they joined in the bipartisan effort to pass the amendments considered a rebuke of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for his harsh treatment of Lithuania and of President Bush for his lenient treatment of China.

House approval of the bill has been a foregone conclusion since early last month, when the chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly passed the measure. Late Wednesday, a proposal to limit relaxation of export controls was handily defeated, 281 to 136, with 59 Republicans supporting the Democratic majority.

The GOP conservatives, with backing from the Administration, argued, however, that broad moves to relax longstanding controls on technology exports to the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe also should be cleared by the Armed Services and Intelligence committees. The Pentagon and intelligence community still have misgivings about permitting the free export of sophisticated products and techniques with potential military use.

The Administration has said little about the bill, mostly the work of House Democrats, while proposing its own program of eased export controls. Bush announced a plan to ease controls on May 2, a day before the House committee approved its bill.

But on Wednesday, three Cabinet secretaries--from State, Defense and Commerce--urged Congress in a message to delay a vote until talks are completed this week among North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and other Western nations on trade with the crumbling Soviet Bloc.

In the message, the Administration warned that the proposed bill goes too far, liberalizing exports of military-capable technology. House Republicans warned that under the House bill, dangerous Third World countries such as Iraq or Libya might more easily obtain military technology.

But the bill’s sponsors brushed off all such claims. Indeed, Wednesday’s floor action on the issue had been scheduled in part precisely because the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom) is meeting on export policy in Paris Wednesday and today. The organization of 17 NATO and other Western countries is responsible for setting technology export rules.

The Administration feared that the House action would limit U.S. negotiating options at the Cocom meeting in Paris. For months now, the European members of the group have been pushing the Administration to relax technology controls more drastically and more quickly.

In some regards, the dispute has more to do with turf than policy, said William T. Archey, vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here. The chamber, he said, strongly supports the House bill precisely because it would codify into law export control relaxations that the Administration would rather leave to presidential discretion.

During Wednesday’s floor debate on the Soviet and China amendments, Administration supporters argued against imposing limits on presidential authority to decide whether or not to sell satellites to China.

The amendment to challenge Soviet policy on Lithuania was sponsored by Democrat Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Republican William S. Broomfield of Michigan. The proposal was a clear signal that Congress will balk at a trade agreement with the Soviets unless Gorbachev eases his Baltic policy.

Congress also reacted to Gorbachev’s hint last Friday that Soviet Jews would not be allowed to emigrate to Israel if they are not barred from settling in territories occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israel War. California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica)--citing Gorbachev’s “ominous threat” to Soviet Jews--proposed that restrictions on exports should not be relaxed if that hint becomes reality.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, however, backed away from his president’s threat, telling Secretary of State James A. Baker III in Copenhagen that Soviet policy is unchanged and that his nation will continue its liberal departure policy.

Levine said that Wednesday’s floor action is “our first legislative opportunity to respond” to the Soviets’ policy in Lithuania and on emigration.

“If we open the door to the Soviet Union, we should not forget the aspirations of the people of Lithuania,” Durbin added.

Said Broomfield, “While the Soviet president puts out one hand to ask for aid from the United States, his other hand is around the neck of tiny Lithuania.”

The Lithuania and emigration conditions were approved by a sweeping, 390-24 vote. The limits on easing export controls for China passed by votes of 352 to 62 and 393 to 15.

BLOCKING SOVIET DEAL--The U.S. hopes to halt exports to help the Soviets build a fiber-optic network. D2