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U.S. bans imports from huge Chinese conglomerate
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has banned imports for two years from a major Chinese industrial conglomerate for selling missile parts to Iran, State Department officials said Thursday.
The sanctions against the China North Industries Corp., also known as Norinco, went into effect May 9 under an executive order and will run in the Federal Register today.
The sanctions are significant because they affect a company with direct links to the Chinese government and could have a noticeable economic impact on U.S. companies because Norinco supplies a variety of goods to the American market, U.S. officials and China analysts say.
Though Chinese state-owned companies have been sanctioned before, this appears to be "the first time we have issued blanket sanctions on a company's entire product line" because of objections to a specific export, said Robert Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
Once a manufacturer of tanks, machine guns and other weapons, Norinco has diversified and now produces more than 4,000 products, including light industrial goods, electronics, textiles, handicrafts, motorcycles and guns. A State Department official said the company exports more than $100 million worth of products to the United States annually.
Though a sizable sum, that is just a fraction of China's more than $125 billion in total annual exports to the United States. The foreign policy impact might be greater.
"This is a meaningful move," said David Lampton, a China expert at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Unlike penalties imposed on other Chinese entities for exporting weapons to so-called rogue states, Lampton said, "this is not some peripheral outfit that the Chinese government can disown, but a company with direct links to the central government." In the past, Chinese officials have denied knowledge of such exports.
According to State Department officials, Norinco sold parts for ballistic missiles to the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, an Iranian producer of medium and long-range missiles.
U.S. officials say the missile parts were sent to Iran in October, two months after the Chinese government, under pressure from the United States, issued guidelines specifically forbidding such sales. The United States has urged China for years to abide by the so-called Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary grouping of arms-producing nations that bars transfers of missile technology.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment on the sanctions.
The impact of the sanctions on U.S.-China relations was unclear. Relations have been stable in recent years, and China has cooperated with the United States in trying to end North Korea's nuclear program. Jeff Bader, a China expert in the Clinton administration, said the Bush administration, which has labeled Iran a member of a so-called "axis of evil," was sending "a strong signal of the unacceptability of such proliferation."
U.S. bans imports from huge Chinese conglomerate
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has banned imports for two years from a major Chinese industrial conglomerate for selling missile parts to Iran, State Department officials said Thursday.
The sanctions against the China North Industries Corp., also known as Norinco, went into effect May 9 under an executive order and will run in the Federal Register today.
The sanctions are significant because they affect a company with direct links to the Chinese government and could have a noticeable economic impact on U.S. companies because Norinco supplies a variety of goods to the American market, U.S. officials and China analysts say.
Though Chinese state-owned companies have been sanctioned before, this appears to be "the first time we have issued blanket sanctions on a company's entire product line" because of objections to a specific export, said Robert Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
Once a manufacturer of tanks, machine guns and other weapons, Norinco has diversified and now produces more than 4,000 products, including light industrial goods, electronics, textiles, handicrafts, motorcycles and guns. A State Department official said the company exports more than $100 million worth of products to the United States annually.
Though a sizable sum, that is just a fraction of China's more than $125 billion in total annual exports to the United States. The foreign policy impact might be greater.
"This is a meaningful move," said David Lampton, a China expert at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Unlike penalties imposed on other Chinese entities for exporting weapons to so-called rogue states, Lampton said, "this is not some peripheral outfit that the Chinese government can disown, but a company with direct links to the central government." In the past, Chinese officials have denied knowledge of such exports.
According to State Department officials, Norinco sold parts for ballistic missiles to the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, an Iranian producer of medium and long-range missiles.
U.S. officials say the missile parts were sent to Iran in October, two months after the Chinese government, under pressure from the United States, issued guidelines specifically forbidding such sales. The United States has urged China for years to abide by the so-called Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary grouping of arms-producing nations that bars transfers of missile technology.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment on the sanctions.
The impact of the sanctions on U.S.-China relations was unclear. Relations have been stable in recent years, and China has cooperated with the United States in trying to end North Korea's nuclear program. Jeff Bader, a China expert in the Clinton administration, said the Bush administration, which has labeled Iran a member of a so-called "axis of evil," was sending "a strong signal of the unacceptability of such proliferation."
