The New York Times reported last Friday that the Chinese government is planning to return a high-performance supercomputer to the United States. The computer, which the Chinese bought from California-based Sun Microsystems, had been illegally diverted to a military facility, prompting Madeleine Albright to lodge a complaint with China's foreign minister in June. The Times quoted William Reinsch, the top Commerce Department official overseeing export controls: "We think that this incident with China shows that the system works. Through the safeguards we have in place today, we detected this diversion."
Not quite. Clinton administration officials learned the supercomputer had been diverted because earlier this year they were asked by congressional committees to investigate the matter. Only upon doing so did they discover the computer was being used at the Chinese military's Changsha Institute of Science and Technology. Up until that point, the administration had expressed no concern that U.S.-made computers were being illegally diverted to Chinese military installations. The episode serves as a reminder of the Clinton administration's carelessness when it comes to controlling the spread of this technology. It also underscores the importance of congressional vigilance. Congress can keep the heat on the administration by making sure that this fall's defense bill retains a provision monitoring supercomputer exports.