Word: teche
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...open the doors 20 years ago, a lot of Chinese exploited this country's freedom to soak up material from unclassified publications, study at the best universities, download technical reports from the Net. Beijing skillfully stitched the tidbits together into the rudiments of a new nuclear arsenal. The high-tech revolution here has moved cutting-edge military information into the civilian mainstream, making a lot of dangerous know-how available to potential enemies. That's the price of the free flow of information in an open society...
...solution: security hawks deride pro-traders as "rope sellers"--capitalists eager to sell communists the rope to hang us with. Under the business-first mantra of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the Clinton Administration raised the commercial imperative to new heights, shifting decisions from the traditional "no, but..." assumption that tech trade is a security risk unless proved otherwise to the "yes, but..." preference for business first. Corporations were allowed to police their own security; the downsizing Defense Department marketed obsolete equipment as scrap, and the Chinese snapped...
...line can be between harmless commerce and military assistance. Representative Christopher Cox sternly warned last week that China has been inducing its U.S. business partners to provide it with military-related technology, and momentum is growing in Congress for a crackdown on this kind of seepage. But the tech industry, and some outside observers, say the risks are being overblown--and some of the tighter rules being considered would be ineffective or even counterproductive...
Then there's the question of whether rules against technology sharing are even effective. The tech industry, not surprisingly, argues they often aren't. Current law requires chipmakers to submit applications to sell powerful microprocessors to countries (such as China and the former Soviet Union states) that are subject to highly restrictive export controls. But Intel argues that it's impossible to prevent the chips it sells to friendly countries from ending up in less friendly ones. "We make microprocessors in the millions each month and ship them to thousands of distributors all over the world, who aren't prevented...
Despite the current backlash, no one is really expecting substantial changes. Indeed, the tech industry's supporters argue that a crackdown would drive China to European or Japanese suppliers, which could put more information in the hands of the Chinese military. "No country is as strict about technology transfers as the U.S.," says Hughes' Dore. "The way to keep the lid on is to keep them dealing with American businesses...