[The Epoch Times, January 10, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Wu Minzhou reported) In order to prevent the outflow of military technology to communist countries, Western countries established the “Coordinating Committee for Export Control” (COCOM) after the end of World War II. According to Japanese media reports, as the CCP is promoting the “military-civilian integration” strategy of using advanced civilian technology to enhance its military power, the US and Japanese governments are developing a new export control mechanism in order to prevent blocking. This plan is regarded as a new version of COCOM .
COCOM (also known as the Paris Coordinating Committee) is an informal intergovernmental international organization (IGO) founded in 1949 by Western European countries in order to prevent the outflow of technology related to military strengthening to the Soviet Union and other communist countries. It has 17 member states, including Japan. , which was dissolved in 1994 after the end of the Cold War.
According to Japan’s “Yomiuri Shimbun” report, a number of relevant sources revealed that the US and Japanese governments are negotiating which technologies will be included in the specific objects of the mechanism specification, which may include semiconductor manufacturing equipment, quantum cryptography (OC) and artificial intelligence (AI). ) and other technologies.
The report mentioned that the administration of US President Joe Biden, who took office in January 2021, has indicated to many countries that the export of technology that has been abused for human rights violations should be controlled. But the aforementioned new version of COCOM is another framework for the CCP’s military-civilian integration strategy.
According to the report, the CCP imports products from other countries or uses it for its own domestic technology research and development, thereby strengthening its economic and military power. The US and Japanese governments are currently on alert. Taking the U.S. Congress as an example, it also criticized U.S. semiconductor design software for being used by the CCP to develop weapons. There are also views that Japan and the Netherlands export their semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China, which is related to the improvement of China’s productivity.
At present, as a mechanism for regulating exports among many countries, there is already the “Wassenaar Arrangement” which governs the export of traditional weapons and related supplies and technologies. Since May 1996, only 40 countries including the United States, Japan and Russia have participated.
With the different interests among the contracting parties, it is often too late to decide which weapons and related supplies and technologies should be included in the norm. In view of this, the U.S. and Japanese governments want to create a new structure with the participation of a small number of like-minded countries with cutting-edge technologies, and formulate a mechanism that can promote export control as soon as possible.
The U.S. government has so far strictly regulated the export of technology to a number of Chinese companies, including the Chinese high-tech company “Huawei”. However, it is considered that the power of the United States alone has its limits, so it is necessary to construct a structure that incorporates other countries.
The report mentioned that the Japanese government also believes that a new mechanism composed of countries with the same high level of technology will be more effective. In addition, it is also possible that this is an export control agreement that Japan actively participates in, so it is easy to predict the impact of the agreement on Japanese companies.
Responsible editor: Lu Meiqi
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