Abstract

"Debating Iron and Steel Provisions to China under the Embargo"

Valeria Zanier, University of Bologna (valeria.zanier@unibo.it)

Since the 1950s China started to develop its iron and steel industry. However, due to technological constraints, China did not have a complete range of steel products, including silicon steel sheets and galvanised steel sheets, all of which needed to be imported in large quantities from abroad. Though being under economic sanctions from NATO countries, in the 1950s there were still ways for China to import civilian goods. Literature has proven that West European countries and Japan provided raw and intermediate goods to the PRC: mostly, chemical materials, and in more limited amounts metal parts and small equipment.
The paper will present the discussion on embargo measures on iron and steel products, which went on in the actual organ in charge: the Coordinating Committee (COCOM) and its sub-section, the China Committee. The topic prompted the emergence of very different positions among the Committee members. Whereas the most conservative ones proposed to embargo all classes of iron and steel products considered that these imports would enable the PRC to produce armaments or strategic equipment, French and German delegates objected that it would be more effective to single out those products that had a precise strategic purpose rather than having to recur to the exception procedure each time. Following these observations, additional meetings were called to examine alternative proposals on how to organize iron and steel products. Such discussions acquire a greater relevance since for NATO-linked economies, the COCOM was actually an important place where to discuss issues of national interest, such as unemployment or overproduction, at a time when European unity and institutions were not yet mature and economic summits of industrialized countries were not yet the norm.
The paper adds to the study of the 1950s as a crucial decade. The creation of the PRC as a new political and economic entity in the 1950s intersected with the reworking of imperialist entanglements and trade relations with pre-war markets against the backdrop of emerging Cold War divisions.