This is the about dual use technology restrictions formed by group of countries. The members are
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.

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Take a look at the list, and think, CHina, soon to be number 2 biggest and one of the most impoertant economies in the world has to subject to this type of restriction. What's Estonia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia ..et doing there?? And I see communist countries inside too.

I only see asian countries there, Korea and Japan the two supposedly well behaved Asian model citizens according to the west.

Is this some kind of exclusive club??

http://www.wassenaar.org/introduction/index.html

Do you think it's comical and a farce? Something serious wrong with the picture?

If you take a look at that list, with exceptions of few exceptional minority model countries that follow the west... I tempting to use the word racist.

obviously, with Russia being a member, one of hard core dictatorship communist country.. So, this tells me it has nothing to do with ideologies.
Communist and Democratic. Race is a much bigger factor.

When ever the west has ever tried to exclde China, China always finds a way to compensate. For example when the US did not allow China into the international space station, China is now working on its own space station, when US did not want to share GPS, China builds COMPASS and has a stake in Galileo

Obviously race plays an important card to the club's membership.
I think this type of exclusive club exposed the white power stucture that needed to be exposed and condemned.

With the exception of UncleToms of korea and japan, majority of the asian countries are excluded from the club too.

i say who cares, not that we need to join their club anyways. China is a superpower and as a superpower China should not be affected by such

CHina is not a superpower yet. Can you name one Chinese powerhouse company that's strong in the semiconductor field?

anyway, that's besides the point. Such club is not political correct, CHina should call up and organize other excluded members to fight for it.

It is a strategic multi-lateral agreement to keep non-member countries from receiving technology that might upset the current geo-strategic environment. Whether it is racist or not is really irrelevant - it is designed to maintain the technological lead of the countries in question in terms of military advantage and is therefore nationalistic, above all. Japan and South Korea are on there for obvious reasons - they are direct recipients of US and EU military/dual-use technology.

Crying about how unfair it is shows that you do not understand the nature of the real world, in which the fundamental process is the competition between nations for their own interests. The countries on that list likely perceive that they have something to lose if China emerges as a military superpower; consequently, China is not part of the club. If China doesn't like this fact, it can start its own club - provided that it has the technological lead necessary to attract member nations.

R&D is an area where China is currently weak, relatively speaking, compared to its rivals. It is naive to believe that competitors would not exploit this weakness.

you guys really misunderstand this. please spend at least five minutes reading their site before making your comments.

they are not just directed towards china. they have guidelines against terrorism and sale of small arms too. the actual export controls are implemented by each individual country. the inclusion of Russia tells you it's not a geopolitical "club" that shares among themselves but restricts others. It's just like one of those many "philanthropic" "feel good" organizations western countries love and J and K love to emulate.

the real teeth against china are the US arms embargo and EU arms embargo. these are specifically controlling exports to china citing the tiananmen incident. Wassenaar has nothing to do with those.

Of course it's not just directed towards China. It's also directed towards the Middle-East, Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and so on. I'm simply talking about how it applies to China.

It's mostly a "we have the technology and you don't" club, and is so by design - after all, you don't need to include states that aren't capable of distributing high technology in the first place. But its purpose is clear: don't spread military or dual-use technology around "irresponsibly." Since the members don't all see eye to eye, they can only implement relatively "loose" restrictions, which maintain each country's arms industries, but establishes some guidelines so as to not spread too much technology to where it might hurt their collective interests.

Military technology is one area that doesn't quite follow market rules. Certain countries maintain strategic monopolies, and other countries just have to deal with it.

^ China has far more military technology than most nations on that list. It's a feel good, "philanthropic" thing that other countries don't care about. I bet they'd love to expand the club to the whole world, but people outside the west and western emulators don't understand the appeal of this noble masturbation.




guys, please use some intelligence and try to understand westerners better.

If it was about noble masturbation, why would Russia be on the list? Does Russia seem like that sort of country to you?

Don't take something at face value. Just like technology, treaties can be "dual-use" - meaning while there is some moral reasoning behind them, there are also geostrategic considerations. Treaties that restrict technology trade are seldom simply "feel good" doctrines. China isn't part of this treaty for obvious reasons - China sells technology to countries that the members of this treaty would not approve of - but China is also, itself, a target of the restrictions. That is what I mean by "the club" - the set of high-technology nations that are ultimately threatened by the diminishing of their technological advantage through trade, and who are often the primary backers of restrictions.

The fact that you would read this treaty and "automatically" think "feel good philanthropy" signals to me the effectiveness of Western liberal propaganda. The contrast is clear - on that thread about NK nukes people were quick to point out that China does not support nuclear proliferation because it wants to retain its nuclear advantage in Asia. Yet, when the West does it, it's "feel good philanthropy?" Less rose-tinted glasses, please. The West supports restrictions on military/dual-use technology transfers for similar reasons. It's all part of the game.

did you see a recent documentary by Russia Today about chinese peasants benefiting from their nuclear technology? you have to cry for what has become of the russians. they suck face towards europe as much as J and K.

I totally believe everyone restricts tech transfer to everyone else. it's just that wassenaar isn't the vehicle to do it. Russia is going to sell to China and India using their own geopolitical calculation. Wassenaar is directed at the third world, so its club can feel like they are responsible, noble people. If we get mad at Wassenaar, we're misdirectiing our rage and looking like fools.

I do not think the Russians have pussified to that degree. Regarding your point about Wassenaar - of course it's no use raging about it. That's what I told antimatter. It's his surprise at the existence of such a treaty that prompted my post. The truth is, treaties like these only provide a name for what happens de facto on the ground. That much I agree with you. As to what the true purpose of something like Wassenaar is - that's something where I think you are missing the point. Wassenaar "justifies" and "legalizes" tech restrictions - it's what makes the de facto, de jure, and is also a vehicle for organizing a multi-lateral agreement, which is in some sense necessary if tech restriction is to be successful on the whole.

countries don't need legal justification to control arms sales. japan can just say they sell to nobody, period, and that's exactly what they do.
wassenaar is the club that gives them guidelines, consensus, and mutual admiration. that's what it is. In practice the members have too many conflicting interests. wassenaar can only be directed at the third world where everyone's interest is the same -- we shall feel good we are being considerate of desperate people. Chinese don't have this type of interest, Chinese interest is, we shall enter the markets where others are shunning them. This is why China is not in the club.

As some members have already mention...Russia have no problem selling weapons to China or even Iran.

This club is just a feel good club. Didnt mean much in the geo politic scene.

The most disruptive act from the west to China is indeed the US+ EU arms embargo. This club is no where near the comparison of that.

I still don't get why you people continue to think that it's some sort of "feel good" club. A "feel good" treaty would be publicized and oft-cited, such that the countries in question could point to it and say, "look, we're responsible countries who care about the third world." Treaties in this category often involve the UN ("we abide by international law"), or are "big names" like the NPT. I've almost never seen Wassenaar mentioned by any news media or PR organization, which makes me think that its purpose is not really image-boosting.

Btw, Wassenaar is generally thought of as a successor to COCOM, a Cold War-era treaty that was targeted at East Bloc countries. Was COCOM "feel good" too?



Before the economic crisis, the Russians were considering a cessation to high-technology weapons sales to China. I believe the reasoning they gave at the time was that China reverse engineers too many of their military products.



Eh, this is simply another version of that, applied to a broader set of targets, and with some differences in the list of signatories. But you're right, Wassenaar doesn't have the same power that those embargoes do.

It does have a secretive sounding name, and if it's really the successor of COCOM.....

I'm not saying I like it. Now they have a collective way to say "China proliferates, China doesn't abide by norms, China so bad" That's a geopolitical weapon in a sense.

The thing is, when Chinese official come up with this kind of attack, they have no idea how to deal with it. They just go like kaixin, "don't bother me, I'm poor, leave me alone!"

Russia was admitted in 1996, when Boris Yeltsin was president and the country seemed poised to join "the West" on its global march for domination and establishment of a world government akin to the former Soviet Union. Predictably, neither the UK nor the US meet the criteria required for admittance of new members. Not exactly sure what "feel good" global organizations you're talking about...I don't think they exist outside of your imagination. However, what is questionable is the effectiveness of the organization in arms export control. Although, in the past, advanced stealth technology has been kept out of Chinese hands, it is difficult to gauge what precise role Wassenaar played in this.

what do you mean UK and US don't meet the criteria? you have any facts to back that up?
during 1996 was the height of russian arms sales to china.
why does USA need Wassenaar to keep stealth out of China? they don't even need any excuse to keep it out of Japan

Don't get me wrong. Wassenaar is not really new and it's not some sort of secret NWO conspiracy. In fact, there are questions about its effectiveness. You can read more about it here:

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol06/62/lipson62.pdf

My disagreement is with your contention that it's a strictly "feel good" treaty. Rather, I think it's a forum between the nations in question for organizing their technology transfer restrictions. The end goal, ultimately, is multi-lateral control of military/dual-use technology exports, particularly to states that are considered "pariahs"; how you interpret that depends on how cynical you are. To me, the membership list of a treaty says a lot about the different "camps" in the world. To this end, it might be interesting to note that according to the above cited article, when the treaty was originally founded in the 1990s, the Japanese hoped that China might become a founding member, but the US had no such expectations, and have not included China formally in the discussions.

Violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty



So?



I was actually thinking of Russia.

To me, this is the real deal, dual usage restriction has hampered China's commercial development which far more fundamental across the board in one country advancement than its arms embargo.

Because if China 's commercial advancement to certain degree, its arms development would advance naturally as a byproduct .

That was good paper you found. Basically Lipson concludes Wassenaar is more about constructing norms and "socializing behavior". But one has to wonder why the norms exist as they do. Yes I do see some attempt to define "pariahs" and keeping them weak.

It was in China's interest to upset this kind of control regime since the Europeans dominated 3rd world economies. Strong local governments were needed to open competition to the Chinese. On the other hand you do see Chinese give in on some arms control issues like missile exports. I think some of that change came about when China became an oil importers, and wished to stablize prices. The more Iran was threatening Persian Gulf shipping, the more Chinese were paying for oil.


no doubt the hypocrisy is immense everywhere you look at these people.
I doubt Russia looks better by telling China, hey it's not my fault, Wassenaar thinks you're a rogue. They'd appear more friendly just by saying the tech isn't mature or something.

Who's we? When's the last time Russia and US are together?
What's criteria to join the club? Not by wealth standard, Not by ideology standard according to the list.

dual use restriction is part of the arms embargo. it's not due to wassenaar.

put it this way, wassenaar wants china to be in it. china doesn't want wassenaar.

I don't think so. CHina wants to buy hightech comercial equipments from US but many of them are restricted under this.
China often said the trade deficit with the west can reduce if the export restriction are to be relaxed.
So, How does that equates to China doesn't want to join?

^they are restricted under the US embargo according to US law, which was put into place in 1990 before Wassenaar ever existed!

well, isn't about time for China to bring about the review of such issue, given it's economic clout status and importance to the stability of the world and IMF contributions.

1)Whether arms control should be applied to China
2)Whether dual usage eshould be linked to arms control. The dual usage restriction has affected the economic side.




Still the questions remains why aren't more asian, arab and latin countries being admitted to the club?? Many of them are not under official embargo by the west. That's the main porblem I am having with such organization.

USA will not sell arms to China any more than China will sell to Japan, whether there is embargo or not. However there are some dual use technologies like engines, electronics and software which can be helpful to China.

As for Wassenaar, most countries just can't be bothered to apply. Anyway all the major arms suppliers except China are already on the list. Wassenaar is not a tech sharing organization, they are a collective commitment to NOT SHARE.

Pretty much sums it up. Antimatter is right to the extent that China might be pissed about treaties like Wassenaar, which organize multi-lateral efforts to not share technology; however, being a part of Wassenaar would not necessarily make other countries share with China - it would just make China a part of the "no sharing" club. This is something that I wasn't quite clear about in my first posts on this thread, where I think I gave the impression that the club of US-led high-tech countries, which do share some technologies with each other, is the same as the club of Wassenaar signatories. This isn't quite true - while there is significant overlap, the two does not seem to be equivalent.

And really, China shouldn't be pissed - not sharing is just the reality of the world. Like someone said above, the US doesn't even share many of its top technologies with its allies, much less its rivals and enemies. If China wants cutting edge technology, it should learn to develop it itself.

meh sounds like one of those organizations that the Americans create every now and then in a vain atempt to make China feel excluded and in order for China to join, China had to make concessions. Thats what they did to Russia, in order for them to join the international space station, they had to scrap MIR. I say joining such groups is too much of a price to pay such as national pride