Publication Type:
- Articles and Reports
Related Country:
- China
In mid-October, the U.S. Commerce Department began to implement a new program to reduce controls on the sale of militarily useful American products to China. For the first time, certain companies in China are being allowed to receive such products from the United States without obtaining an export license that would otherwise be required. The Commerce Department is selecting beneficiaries of this program in China on the ground that they are trustworthy–that is, that they are exclusively civilian and can be trusted to confine to peaceful use items that are also highly useful for military production or for making weapons of mass destruction. Freed from the requirement of an export license, the companies, known as “Validated End-Users,” will be able to import a range of controlled U.S. goods more quickly and easily, since U.S. officials will no longer review these shipments before they go out.