Trade, technology and security: United States bilateral export-control negotiations with South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia

From the early state of the Cold War, the United States initiated worldwide export controls as an economic containment policy against the Soviet Union. The U.S. government tried to block any transfer of militarily sensitive items and technologies to the Soviet Union, which may benefit the Soviet military strength. Although initially conceived as a temporary measure, the export controls became a major strategy to fights against communist threats in the name of national security. In order to make its efforts valid, the United States asked its allies for international cooperation of export controls. The United States and its western allies created Coordinated Committee (CoCom) as a multilateral regime of export controls.; The United States also created extensive regimes of bilateral export control agreements with its non-Western allies. As technological capacity of some non-CoCom allies, such as Asian Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), grew rapidly in the 1980s, the United States asked these allies to adopt CoCom level export controls. The U.S. negotiations with Asia-Pacific countries in the 1980s, later known as Third Country Cooperation (TCC), however, brought limited success. Despite their dependence on the United States and broad agreement on security interests, some countries did not cooperate with U.S. initiative as they saw divergent national interests with regard to export controls.; The case studies of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia shows that the four Asia-Pacific allies followed their own preferences in economic development, trade, and technology in deciding their cooperation with the U.S. demands. In particular, the U.S. government did not use its coercive leverage—denial of U.S. technology exports—against South Korea and Taiwan despite their non-cooperation due to concern for domestic industry's business interest. This confirms that weaker allies' preference as well as hegemonic power is important determinant of regime cooperation.