Commentary
Sanctions against China and Russia are leaking across a broad swath of goods to the point of ineffectuality, according to new reporting this week.
U.S. export controls on high-efficiency computer chips to China, for example, have been ineffective at stopping the chips’ use in Beijing’s nuclear weapons labs. Decades after the sanctions were imposed in 1997, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s top labs continued to acquire controlled chips. Those acquisitions likely continue today. U.S. sellers of chips used by China’s nuclear weapons industry include the California companies Intel and Nvidia.
Similar problems bedevil sanctions on Russia. Sanctioned items, including anything from sonar to luxury cars and heat pumps, may legally cross the land border into Russia from Finland, for example, as long as they are on their way to third countries like Kazakhstan or Georgia. Once the items get into Russia, however, Moscow obviously does not enforce the sanctions against itself. The sanctioned items can then be sold for a premium to Russian buyers….