U.S.-China Tech Battle Threatens Pandemic Containment and More

Daniel J. Ikenson andHuan ZhuReuters reports that the Trump administration is planning to tighten export controls “to prevent China from obtaining advanced U.S. technology for commercial purposes and then diverting it to military use.” That sounds unobjectionable. After all, one purpose of U.S. export control laws is to ensure that dual‐​use items—articles that have both commercial and military applic ations—are exported for commercial use only, unless explicitly licensed for military use. But closer scrutiny of the fine print is needed to assess whether the expected national security benefits of these new rules will be significantly outweighed by their commercial, geopolitical, and human costs .The Export Control Reform Act of 2018 ( “ECRA”) grants the administration broad jurisdiction over “the export, reexport, and in‐​country transfer” of dual‐​use items, such as “accelerometers,” which are devices that measure the movement of objects and are used in commercial aircraft navigation systems, as well as in mi ssile guidance systems. The ECRA requires the secretary of commerce to establish and maintain a list of controlled items, and a list of foreign persons and end uses deemed threatening to national security.Under the law, licenses are required to export those items and to export to those persons, but exceptions apply under certain conditions. Some of those exceptions are on the chopping block. According toReuters, three major chan...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs