During his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama last week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao requested that the United States ease its restrictions on high-tech exports to China.  This was the most recent request from a senior Chinese government official.

Dating back to the Cold War era, controls on technology exports has been an important and strategic policy measure for the United Sates to maintain its military supremacy.  During that time, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) put an embargo on the export of military products and technologies to the Soviet-bloc countries including China.

With the normalization of relations between the two countries in 1979 and especially into the 1980s, the United States started to export to China not only military-civilian dual-use products and technologies on a case-by-case basis but also certain non-lethal military equipment.

It was the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in China in 1989 that led to the complete shutdown of U.S. exports of military technology to China.  In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, the United States further tied up its technology export regulations.  Under the so-called “deemed exports” rule, foreigners from some countries, including China, must go through strict scrutiny before being allowed to participate in or access research in certain high-tech areas.

From time to time, policy documents from the U.S. government have accused of China’s illegal acquisition of U.S. advanced technology.  In 1999, for example, the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China released a report, known as the Cox report as it was under the sponsorship of Representative Chris Cox, alleging that China used stolen information from the United States to upgrade its nuclear weapons technology.

In mid-November 2009, in its annual report to Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission indicated once again that Beijing’s espionage is “growing in scale, intensity and sophistication.”

Because of the government’s tough stand, U.S. technology companies must get approval from the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and State for possible technology transfer to Chinese companies or doing business in China.  In 2001, the Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation had to abandon a plan to build an advanced chip manufacturing facility, as the technologies to be transferred from the United States could have possible military implications.

While the United States also has pressured its allies not to bring advanced technologies, especially those with potential for military uses, to China, this has not prevented China from obtaining certain technologies from other countries.  U.S. stubbiness on this issue has resulted in a significant decline in its share in China’s technology imports, from 18.3 percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2008.

This has translated into a huge loss to U.S. companies and an enlarging deficit with China in high-tech trade.  Because of this, U.S. business has lobbied for an overhaul of this export control regime.

It is under these circumstances that the United States-China joint commissions on commerce and trade and on science and technology cooperation and high-level dialogue on strategic and economic issues all brought the sensitive issue of high-tech trade to the table.  But no one should expect the call from Chinese Premier Wen to accelerate a change of course on the part of the U.S. government concerning high-tech exports to China.  Scraping the Cold War mentality is not going to take place easily or overnight.