Chinese Missile Proliferation through SOE

The China-Iran connection in missile proliferation can be seen in the sanctions recently applied to a company called North China Industries Corporation (NORINCO).  The Chinese, as they always do, denied that NORINCO had done anything wrong, but the sanctions and lifting of sanctions has been going on since 2003, when NORINCO was sanctioned three times.  Since then, they have become a "serial proliferator" which sounds bad when you say it out loud.  [see http://info.hktdc.com/alert/us0320c.htm  for the Chinese view ].  The Chinese Embassy released a statement threatening sanctions on a few companies doing business in Taiwan like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. That statement specifically mentions that it "could" stop sales of commercial aircraft in China, which would affect Lockheed and Boeing.  [see http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t656463.htm ].

Chun Han Wong, in a Wall Street Journal article in December 2015 [http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-has-few-options-in-protesting-u-s-arms-sales-to-taiwan-1450373290] says there are few things that these companies sell to China, though I was surprised at a few he mentioned:  " Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractors involved in the latest arms deal, have commercial interests in China. Lockheed Martin’s newly acquired unit Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. sells civilian helicopters in China, while Raytheon has sold civilian air-traffic control systems and provided consultancy services in the mainland. Neither firm immediately responded to requests to comment."  No doubt they will not be commenting anytime soon.  Boeing, as noted last week, announced layoffs of 4500, mostly in the commercial aircraft sector.  You can look at that as a cause an effect relationship or a coincidence caused by world markets.

For myself, I want to know what happened to the hastily withdrawn sanctions on ZTE.  ZTE was doing far more than anyone thought before this case was brought.  The ZTE Internal documents clearly show what ZTE was doing, how they set up front companies to do the buying, and they knew what export rules they were violating.  Why did the sanctions go away a week after they were announced?  I suspect businesses used the "trade war" analogy to stop the sanctions, when China's trade war with us was precisely the reason they were imposed to begin with.