U.S. to Lift Ban on High-Tech Sales to China

In a move aimed at easing the tense relations between Washington and Beijing, the Bush Administration has decided to lift the sanctions it imposed last spring on the sale of American satellite parts and high-speed computers to China, an Administration official confirmed Thursday night.

President Bush had announced the imposition of the sanctions last spring during the same speech at Yale University in which he said he had decided to renew China’s most-favored-nation trade benefits. Bush said then that the sanctions would be imposed “for the sake of national security.”

By eliminating them, the Administration meets the condition that China set for its willingness to abide by the international agreement that restricts the export of missiles.

During Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s trip to Beijing last month, Chinese officials said they would abide by the agreement, the Missile Technology Control Regime, only if the United States lifted the ban on the sale of computers and satellite parts.

Baker made no commitment then. “This is a matter that we will be examining further in Washington,” he said in Beijing. But the State Department notified Congress this week that it intends to lift the sanctions, as China had requested.

“With China’s commitments (on missile technology), these sanctions will have served their purpose and helped realize an important success for American foreign policy,” the State Department told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week.

But there were signs Thursday night that the action could lead to renewed criticism on Capitol Hill of the Administration policy of seeking reconciliation and dialogue with China.

“I think it’s very difficult to understand why the Administration is doing this,” asserted a Democratic staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “They’re giving the Chinese something and they’ve gotten nothing from them yet.”

He noted that beyond China’s pledges, the Administration has not yet received any proof that Beijing will comply with either the missile agreement or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The announcement that the sanctions will be lifted came in a letter from Janet G. Mullins, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She stressed that the action “will not, of course, make China immune from future sanctions,” if the Chinese enter into new sales of dangerous missiles or missile technology. The action also does not affect the few other remaining sanctions that the United States maintains against China.

After China’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square, the Administration imposed broad sanctions against China. These included a ban on high-level visits or exchanges, a withdrawal of U.S. support for World Bank loans to China and a ban on U.S. military sales to China or exchanges between high-level military officials of the two countries.

Over the last 2 1/2 years, most of these prohibitions have been lifted or watered down. For example, the ban on high-level visits was effectively ended when Baker visited Beijing last month. “Unless we were to keep United States-China relations in the deep freeze forever, we had to start talking,” he explained.

But the restrictions on U.S. military sales to China and on contacts between top-level military officials of the two countries remain in effect.

The Administration adopted the curbs on the sale of high-speed computers and satellite parts after U.S. officials discovered that China had sent launchers for its newly developed M-11 missiles to Pakistan.

In May, at the time the sanctions were adopted, an Administration official said the Commerce Department had 20 pending license applications for permission to sell China about $30 million worth of high-speed computers. The official also predicted that the curbs would have “a pretty substantial impact on (China’s) satellite program.”

For more than three years, officials of first the Reagan Administration, then the Bush Administration, have sought to prevent China from selling new missiles or missile technology to Third World countries such as Syria, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Administration officials hope that China’s pledge to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime means that it will hold up exports of new missiles or technology to these countries.