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ITAR is a complicated problem. In many cases the Russians either already have the technological capability or don't have the interest/ability to clone it. The

ITAR is a complicated problem. In many cases the Russians either already have the technological capability or don't have the interest/ability to clone it. The Chinese are often the other way around on all three constraints. The issue isn't so much ITAR, but tech transfer in general though. The US is an economic rival to China whereas Russia has roughly the GDP of NY. We've seen time and time again that feeding China technology only results in it being replicated and further developed domestically.

dis-sys 10y ago
Here comes one interesting problem - as an economic rival to China, if the US keeps refusing to sell its techs/high tech products to China, what US can really do about the current trade deficit with China? For the general tech transfer issue, did the embargo actually work? Look at supercomputers, satellites, nukes including its delivery systems and jet fighters etc. It didn't work very well to serve the US interests. It is a failed system that probably slowed we Chinese down a little bit, but in a long run it gives your rival all motivations to invest heavily in _all_ those areas and eventually master them. When the US is basically forcing its rival to invest in itself, it sounds like a strategic mistake to me.
- pdelbarba 10y ago
  Yea, it's probably true that it incentivizes China to develop it's own tech (most notably super computer chips) but to develop something from square-one takes a lot of resources. It's a lot easier to reverse engineer something you bought and use it to build your own then it is to develop something from a concept. If everyone has to spend their time reinventing the wheel, they're not doing other things. As far as the trade imbalance, the things that would fall under ITAR (the only goods that are significantly restricted) are not particularly significant on a global trade scale. Yes, the US could sell a few billion dollars worth of F-22 jets to China, but that still wouldn't make a dent, and to acquire the tech, China would only have to buy one.

dis-sys 10y ago

Here comes one interesting problem - as an economic rival to China, if the US keeps refusing to sell its techs/high tech products to China, what US can really do about the current trade deficit with China? For the general tech transfer issue, did the embargo actually work? Look at supercomputers, satellites, nukes including its delivery systems and jet fighters etc. It didn't work very well to serve the US interests. It is a failed system that probably slowed we Chinese down a little bit, but in a long run it gives your rival all motivations to invest heavily in _all_ those areas and eventually master them. When the US is basically forcing its rival to invest in itself, it sounds like a strategic mistake to me.

pdelbarba 10y ago
Yea, it's probably true that it incentivizes China to develop it's own tech (most notably super computer chips) but to develop something from square-one takes a lot of resources. It's a lot easier to reverse engineer something you bought and use it to build your own then it is to develop something from a concept. If everyone has to spend their time reinventing the wheel, they're not doing other things. As far as the trade imbalance, the things that would fall under ITAR (the only goods that are significantly restricted) are not particularly significant on a global trade scale. Yes, the US could sell a few billion dollars worth of F-22 jets to China, but that still wouldn't make a dent, and to acquire the tech, China would only have to buy one.