[FPSPACE] China to End Missile Part Exports

[Dan Barkley]

>
> A couple of points (well, three anyway):
>
> -China has made this pledge twice before, in 1992 and 1994, and broke it
> both times.  The Clinton administration thus looks a little like Charlie
> Brown, believing that Lucy will not pull the football away this
> time-promise.  It is doubtful that a Republican Congress will be so
> trusting.

Don't Republicans currently have a majority in both houses? I think their
margin slipped after the elections.

At any rate, I never thought that the sanctions would be lifted after the
licensing authority was shifted from Commerce to State. But it was!

I bet the industry (read: Hughes and Loral) did some serious
lobbying on Capitol Hill (Democrat$ and Republican$) and behihd the
scenes.

>
> -Russia has just announced that it is pulling out of a promise to stop
> selling military equipment to Iran.  (To be precise, they announced this
> back in October, but the administration kept it silent, apparently because
> Gore had claimed that this Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement was one of the high
> points of his Vice Presidency and did not want it to fall apart
> embarrassingly before the November elections. This agreement also included
> various space provisions as well.)  The collapse of the Russian agreement
> is likely to have an impact on the Chinese promise, because the critics
> can say "See?  We told you so!"

Alternatively one could argue:
'Iran buying missile from Russian instead of China makes the latter's
promise not to sell missile to Iran somewhat credible.'
Perhaps the Russian announcment partly motivated China to 'bargain away'
missile exports?

In the case of Russia, I suspect that money (earning hard currency) was
real the motivating factor.

In the case of China, I suspect that advanced arms sales or extending the
NMD to Taiwan would bring about abrrogation. Sure China earns money from
arms exports, but it earns a lot more from trade.

>
> What does this have to do with space?  Potentially a lot.  Next year there
> may be a lot of effort to a) halt satellite licenses to China, and
> b) impose sanctions on Russia.  Could the ISS relationship
> suffer?  Possibly.  Do not think that space is immune; if the US-Russian
> relationship deteriorates, space cooperation could suffer as well.