US concern mounts over HK export controls to mainland
(11-20 09:28)
A report to the US Congress yesterday voiced concern about Hong Kong's export controls, fearing that the mainland could use the territory to import sensitive technology.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in its annual wide-ranging report to advise Congress, also said Beijing has been ''chipping away'' at the special status of Hong Kong since the handover.
The United States has looser restrictions on exports to Hong Kong than to the mainland, to which a number of high-tech US goods are banned for fear that the mainland will convert them for military use.
''The ease of transshipment from addresses in Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China represents a significant and exploitable weakness in US export control policy related to China,'' the report said.
Carolyn Bartholomew, the chair of the commission, said that researchers had not found specific examples of sensitive technology moving into the mainland but heard accounts that Hong Kong's customs standards were ''slipping.''
''There is no specific documentation yet, but it's a trend that we're concerned about,'' she said.
''Hong Kong has always been a place to date with very good, very strict export controls,'' she said.
The commission also pointed to signs of growing mainland pressure on Hong Kong, noting that the territory refused to admit prominent dissidents ahead of June's 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Among its recommendations, the commission called for US lawmakers and officials to visit Hong Kong on their trips to the mainland as a way to encourage its special status.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE |
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