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Abstract
Why does the United States find it challenging to obtain third-party commitment to its nonproliferation policies? Although US pressure is necessary to trigger implementation, I contend that states are less responsive when the affected industries foresee growing gains from targets and display strong leverage on the ruling parties. I tested this argument by conducting a within-case study on US–Taiwanese nonproliferation cooperation concerning North Korea since 1992. On the basis of interviews, official statistics, and Wikileaks documents, this study revealed that because of the machinery industry’s increasing export volume to North Korea and strong political influence, Taiwan delayed United States–requested enforcement actions against the machinery industry’s violators until 2006. By contrast, because of minimal energy trade and financial transactions with North Korea, Taiwan swiftly halted a nuclear waste disposal plan in 1997 and improved financial sanctions in the 21st century. These findings fill the theoretical gap regarding the political costs of sanction enforcement on third-party states and add to the scholarship on nonproliferation commitment. The contemporary policy implication is that Taiwan’s high-tech industries are likely to display stronger opposition to United States–demanded controls over trade in semiconductor goods with China.
Acknowledgment
The earliest version of this paper was presented at the 2019 workshop of the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica. The author is grateful for Bryan R. Early and the two anonymous reviewers’ comments. The author appreciates the firsthand observations shared by Carl W. Baker, Robert Shaw, and the five anonymous interviewees on this topic. The author also thanks Mei-Fang Tseng and Amber Sung for transcribing the conversations with the interviewees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 This research presumes the United States to be the primary sender for two reasons. First, according to the Threat and Imposition of Sanctions dataset, the United States is the most frequent sender, accounting for 48% of all cases from 1945 to 2005 (Morgan, Bapat, & Kobayashi, Citation2014, p. 545). Second, the United States is also the primary advocate for multilateral export controls and nonproliferation regimes such as the Container Security Initiative.
2 The United States is Taiwan’s second largest trade partner and its top supplier of arms. Taiwan was North Korea’s fourth largest trading partner, but North Korea only constituted Taiwan’s 173rd largest trading partner before all trade with North Korea was banned in 2017. See Chang (Citation2020), p. 5.
3 For instance, the US Senate Banking Committee maintained powerful opposition to export controls policies during the Bush administrations. See Cupitt et al. (Citation2003), p. 166.
4 For example, data on individual Taiwanese firms’ campaign donations are available after 2008. The number of trade union participants in each of Taiwan’s industries is available after 2011.
5 President Lee also assigned Tai-ying Liu, KMT’s former investment chief, to privately visit North Korea to discuss the establishment of diplomatic relations. Liu succeed in meeting Kim Jong-il, who displayed great interest in Taiwan’s proposal to build mutual official relations and to offer US$200 million in loans. However, this plan was also interrupted by the United States and was called off. For more information, see Liu (Citation2018).
6 In 1998, the Executive Yuan sought to revise the Foreign Trade Act on illicit transshipment via ports in Taiwan. The Legislative Yuan passed Article 27-1, providing customs with the power to seize illicit transshipment goods (Legislative Yuan, Citation1990, p. 364, 1998, pp. 203–204).
7 The United States initiated consultations with Taiwan in 1988 to modernize Taiwan’s export control system after the Toshiba incident. The United States imposed secondary sanctions on Toshiba, a Japanese multinational conglomerate, for its transfer of milling machines and computer controllers to the Soviet Union (Shaw, Citation2021; Wuebbels, Citation2005, p. 392). Following this incident, it became concerned that other allies’ companies would similarly divert strategic goods and technology to enemies (Shaw, Citation2021). Thus, the United States requested that Taiwan internalize the CoCom guidelines by signing the Memorandum.
8 As an analogy, the delayed decision to extend conscription to 1 year reflected the same concern about the election cycle. No later than July 2022, President Tsai had determined to extend compulsory military service. To avoid losing votes during the 2022 local election campaign, the ruling party pushed back the announcement to December 2022, a month after the local elections finished. For more details, see Kuo (Citation2023).
9 At first, Taiwanese legislators introduced the Money Laundering Control Act in the 1990s, aimed at curbing politicians’ corruption instead of proliferation. This loophole sowed the seed for Taiwanese trading companies to finance domestic violators and North Korean entities. Although Taiwan had started to monitor suspicious financial activities involving North Korea in 2006 (Wikileaks, Citation2006c), the Ma administration strengthened financial sanctions by amending the Foreign Exchange Control Regulations and International Finance Business Regulations in 2009 (Legislative Yuan, Citation2009, p. 5).