How the Japanese reacted when their firms broke rules. Young people do not have a memory of how things were during the Cold War.
They do not know what the CoCom was.
More Japanese firms accused of prohibited sales to Soviets
By STEWART SLAVIN
TOKYO -- The government filed a complaint Wednesday against a Japanese air conditioner maker and a trading company for allegedly selling a chemical solution to the Soviet Union that could be used to stabilize the course of guided missiles.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry, or MITI, accused the Osaka-based Daikin Industries Ltd. and Tokyo's Boeki Ltd., an exporter, of violating an international ban on exports of military related technology to communist countries.
It would mark Japan's third major violation in two years of the prohibitions on such exports.
Police in the western city of Osaka began searching the offices of the two companies Wednesday morning.
The two firms were accused of exporting to the Soviet Union 860 tons of a concentrated solution of halogenated hydrocarbon, worth 400 million yen ($3.3 million), on 17 occasions between February 1986 and May 1987.
The ministry said the chemical, used in Japan as a washing agent in semiconductor production, also can be employed to extinguish fires at chemical plants, or as a coolant to stabilize the course of guided missiles.
Ministry officials said it was the third major violation by Japanese firms in the past two years of rules established by the Coordinating Council on Multilateral Export Controls, or COCOM. The council, based in Paris, is a watchdog group of 16 Western nations charged with regulating exports to communist countries of equipment that could be used for military purposes.
Last year, a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics giant Toshiba Corp. was found guilty of selling sophisticated milling machinery to the Soviet Union.
See article here: https://projectalpha.eu/the-toshiba-kongsberg-case/
The equipment enabled the Soviets to build super-quiet submarine propellers, according to U.S. defense officials.
The Toshiba incident so angered the U.S. Congress that it issued a ban against the sale of Toshiba products in the United States under the new trade bill.
In a similar case this year, a Tokyo court fined two Japanese trading companies in October for selling computerized sensing devices to China. Defense experts said the devices could be used to detect submarine movements and monitor nuclear tests.
The English-language Daily Yomiuri newspaper said Wednesday the trade ministry acted quickly in the latest case so that the investigation would not coincide with this month's visit to Japan by Soviet Foreign Ministry Eduard Shevardnadze, scheduled to begin Dec. 19.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more UPI news and photos.
Read more: upi.com |
