ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95120402.ECO
DATE:12/04/95
TITLE:04-12-95  RELAXATION OF EXPORT CONTROLS ON COMPUTERS WILL GO AHEAD

TEXT:
(Some accommodation reached with Japan)  (770)
By Bruce Odessey
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- The Clinton administration has reached agreement with
Japan to relax export controls to third countries on technologically
advanced computers commonly called supercomputers, U.S. Department of
Commerce officials have disclosed.

Commerce Under Secretary William Reinsch told reporters December 4
during an export-control conference that the administration would make
no formal announcement of the agreement.

He did say the outcome of U.S. discussions "successfully concluded"
with Japan was that his department would issue regulations
implementing President Clinton's policy statement issued October 6.

That policy will eliminate controls on the export of all computers to
countries in North America, most of Europe and parts of Asia and relax
controls on computer exports to most other countries.

Given continuing rapid advances in computing technology, the existing
U.S.-Japan supercomputer arrangement sets what is now a relatively low
threshold for controls to third countries -- on all computers capable
of 1,500 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS), a standard
measure of performance.

U.S. industry officials have complained that Japan was stalling on
rewriting the agreement to lift the threshold in order to protect its
manufacturers from more-competitive U.S. manufacturers.

Whether Japan agreed to adapt the U.S. policy into a rewritten
agreement or the two sides resolved the issue some other way,
administration officials declined to say.

Under the new policy, the United States will require no individual
licenses for any computers shipped to Western Europe, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand and other parts of North America.

A second group of countries, including South America, South Africa and
parts of Eastern Europe and East Asia, will require individual
licenses only on computers above 10,000 MTOPS.

A third group of countries including China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan,
Middle East and Mahgreb countries, parts of Eastern Europe and former
Soviet republics will require individual licenses on computers above
2,000 MTOPS, with increasingly more rigorous restrictions on higher
ranges.

The U.S. embargo on computer exports would remain on Iran, Iraq, Libya
and North Korea, countries the United States calls pariah states.

Other Commerce Department officials said the agency was aiming for
December 14 publication of a computer interim regulation in the
Federal Register making the policy changes effective immediately. They
said, however, the draft regulation was just now being circulated for
inter-agency review.

On another subject, Commerce Department officials said some key issues
were still unresolved days before a high-level meeting for concluding
negotiations on creating a multilateral export-control regime being
called the New Forum.

The New Forum would take its place next to the existing
non-proliferation regimes: the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Australia Group for
biological and chemical weapons.

The New Forum would aim to halt exports of conventional arms and
advanced technology to the four pariah states and to the Middle East
and South Asia although none of the target areas would be identified
by name, said Sue Eckert, assistant secretary of commerce.

"Everyone knows who we're talking about," Eckert said. "This is not an
issue."

An issue still to be resolved at the December 18-19 high-level meeting
in The Hague, she said, was how New Forum members should share
information about their exports of controlled items. The United States
favors a policy of consultation before shipments take place, she said.

Negotiators have mostly agreed on the composition of the New Forum
export-control list, with a few exceptions, including machine tools
and computers, Under Secretary Reinsch said.

Altogether 28 countries are participating in the New Forum
negotiations, including the 17 members of the Coordinating Committee
for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) -- Australia, Japan and the
NATO countries except Iceland -- the Cold War-era regime that went out
of business in March 1994.

Also participating are Russia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, all former COCOM target countries.

Reinsch said the Hague meeting could conclude the negotiations to
launch the New Forum in January.

On another subject, Reinsch said he expected President Clinton to sign
within days a long-awaited executive order further streamlining the
U.S. export-control licensing procedure, including strict time limits
to prevent bureaucrats from stalling difficult cases.

Still pending, he said, was a related reform concerning commodity
jurisdiction -- whether an item belongs on the Commerce Department's
Control List or the more-restrictive Munitions List enforced by the
State Department. Holding up that change, he said, were controversies
over satellites and aircraft.
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