Some High-Tech Sales to China Urged

WASHINGTON — The United States should consider allowing “moderate relaxation” of controls on export to China of electronic equipment useful for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), a congressional agency said Wednesday.

The Office of Technology Assessment said there was little evidence that so-called dual-use technology--applicable for civilian or military purposes--imported from the United States and other Western countries has been a significant factor in China’s military modernization.

“At worst, the current policy of technology transfer to China entails only moderate direct risk to the United States,” it said. “China will not have the strategic strength for serious threats for several decades.”

But the study added that “in the long term, technology transfer will have a great military effect if it spurs innovation, modernized thinking, research and development and economic growth generally.”

During a visit to Beijing in April, Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige pledged that the United States would boost high-technology exports to China, while at the same time calling on the Chinese to take steps to make foreign investment more welcome.

“We have been encouraged by (China’s) demonstrated willingness and ability to safeguard sensitive U.S. technology,” Baldrige said. He added that “we will increase not just the volume of (technology transfers) but also increase the level, and we will do both of these this year.”

The OTA report noted that China’s current five-year plan has put a high priority on acquisition of technology, particularly in the fields of transportation, electronics and computers.

Major U.S. companies involved in technology-intensive projects with the Chinese have included General Electric, American Motors, McDonnell Douglas, International Business Machines and Wang Laboratories.

In the military area, the report observed that transfer of dual-use technologies has increased rapidly.

“China’s difficulty in assimilating advanced technologies suggests that more could be transferred without incurring much risk that China will use them to produce sophisticated weapons systems, but this risk will grow over the years as China’s technological capability improves,” it said.