In the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the U.S. Congress passed legislation banning the sale of “crime control or detection equipment” to China.  Beijing’s more recent history of human rights abuses hasn’t helped to greatly improve the country’s record in that department, and many watchdog groups remain vigilant about the sale of any equipment that could be used for further crackdowns.

However, with the 2008 summer Olympics approaching, a conflict of interest is emerging.  China will need to increase security precautions and ramp up surveillance in order to ensure a safe event.  And in the effort to do so, some multinational firms, like Honeywell, GE, and IBM, among others, are working to provide China with effective security systems.

    According to the New York Times’ Keith Bradsher, some worry that the “high-surveillance” systems China is importing could be retained after the Olympics to crack down on protests.  As Bradsher summarizes it: “Long after visitors leave, security exports say, the surveillance equipment Western companies leave behind will provide authorities here new tools to track not only criminals, but dissidents too.”

This conflict of interest bears further scrutiny, but it also leads to yet more trouble in U.S.-China trade.  In mid-2007, the Bush administration began allowing the sale of certain “politically delicate technologies” to China, according to Steven Weisman of the New York Times.  Weisman notes that the lowering of export restrictions was intended to help U.S. firms boost overall sales of high-tech equipment.  However, the issue of dual-use technology again rears its head.

These recent exports include material components relevant to “advanced aircraft engine parts, navigation systems, telecommunications equipment and sophisticated composite materials.”   Some experts believe that Beijing could find ways to utilize the equipment for military purposes, or for further sale to countries like Iran and Syria.

International trade is a complicated picture, but blind adherence to a free market philosophy can be problematic (as U.S. consumers have seen with tainted Chinese products).  The coming Olympics should help cast a spotlight on the true nature of the Beijing regime—and may help guide our future course of trade with China, calling into question the wisdom of selling security and dual-use equipment to a country that disregards accepted international norms for human rights.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Holding China Accountable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.