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Sensitive exports hard to control, Bureau of Foreign Trade admits

Export controls designed to keep sensitive technology from falling into the wrong hands are far from foolproof, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said on Friday, adding that the problem is one that many countries face.

The bureau acknowledged that there were difficulties in determining whether Taiwanese exporters of sensitive commodities had transferred technology that could be used for military purposes to China.

The bureau's Import/Export Administration Division Director Peter Ho (何裕良) told the Taipei Times that the bureau most likely "would not know" if certain strategic high-tech commodities had been acquired by dangerous end users after leaving Taiwan.

"But this is not just a problem for Taiwan; many major exporters have this problem," Ho said.

The bureau issued a press release on Friday stating that it had been investigating Taiwanese exporters of high-precision machine tools since last year to determine if any had violated its Regulations Governing Export and Import of Strategic High-Tech Commodities.

Taiwanese tools

The release was issued after a report last Thursday by the Japanese-language daily Sankei Shimbun claiming that China has used sophisticated Taiwanese machine tools to service the more than 800 ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan, as well as attack helicopters that could be used in an invasion of the country.

Ho also disputed the accuracy of the report, saying, "Sankei Shimbun quoted the Ministry of National Defense in its report, but the ministry has never approached us about this problem."

Ho said that the machine tools most capable of fabricating weapons-grade parts were those outfitted with Computer Numerical Control (CNC) devices -- technology that significantly enhances the precision of the tools. Taiwan imports CNC technology mainly from Japan, he added.

"I talked with Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on the phone yesterday, and they don't know anything about [the Sankei Shimbun report], either," Ho said.

The trade bureau's investigation also seeks to determine whether Taiwanese manufacturers are capable of producing machine tools sophisticated enough to fabricate weapons components by themselves, he said.

"If the Sankei Shimbun report is accurate," Ho said, "then perhaps the Chinese military acquired Taiwanese machine tools that were exported to China after being equipped with imported Japanese or German CNC technology."

Ho said Taiwanese exporters must be certified to export high-precision machine tools and other strategic high-tech commodities, and that the bureau performs due diligence on the importer and end user as listed by the exporter.

Difficult to control

"However, it's very difficult for us to know if the [strategic high-tech] commodities ultimately end up with different end users than the ones first listed after they're exported," Ho said.

Despite this difficulty, Ho rates cooperation with exporters as high due to penalties that include fines and prison sentences for violators of export control regulations.

Ho said that the regulations and procedures were modeled after those in the US, and the bureau regularly consulted with such US government agencies as the defense and state departments in deciding whether to permit domestic exporters to export strategic high-tech commodities to certain end users.
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