TAIWAN EXPORT CONTROL: POSITIVE REACTION

S E C R E T TAIPEI 004604 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/TC, EAP/EP, ISN/MTR MHARDIMAN DEPT PASS AIT/W E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/22/2015 TAGS: ETTC PARM PINR PREL PTER TW CBW MTAG SUBJECT: TAIWAN EXPORT CONTROL: POSITIVE REACTION REF: A. STATE 207695: ¶B. TAIPEI 3479 ¶C. STATE 202155 ¶D. LE-NEELY EMAIL 11/15/05 Classified By: AIT Director Douglas Paal, Reason 1.4 b/d ¶1. (S) AIT delivered ref a talking points to Taiwan Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) Export Controls Task Force Head Wally Su on November 15. Su gave a very positive response to the news that we have requested our representatives in Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom to demarche appropriate host government officials to "support" and "assist" Taiwan in improving its export controls. He expressed hope that this "multilateral" approach would strengthen channels of communication between Taiwan and these other economies and facilitate the sharing of information on export control issues. Su remarked that a "multilateral network" such as this would have made Taiwan's attempts to return the P2S5 precursor chemical to Italy (ref b) much easier, since during that case Taiwan was frustrated in its attempts to consult with authorities in other economies. ¶2. (S) AIT will later this week begin demarches on local representatives of Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom to deliver the points and non-papers in ref c. AIT requests that posts in these countries info AIT when reporting on reactions to the demarches there. ¶3. (S) Su also spoke of problems created by discrepancies between the Export Control Commodity Numbers (ECCN) and the Harmonized System (HS) numbering system. He asked for AIT advice on how other economies deal with the discrepancies, and he welcomed the idea of visit by a U.S. technical team that could discuss such issues, as well as the expanded list of sensitive commodities. Su also responded positively to ref d suggestions of a possible visit by a EXBS-funded assessment team during the week of December 12-16 and to possible EXBS training on pre-license checks and post-shipment verification sometime in the first half of January 2006. Paal