Washington - The United States has threatened action that could disrupt a French-led satellite maker's supply chain, spurred by suspicion that it illegally used US know-how or parts in spacecraft launched by Chinese rockets.
The State Department last month quietly warned the company, Thales Alenia Space, that export licenses needed by its US suppliers might be denied, absent greater cooperation in an investigation of the matter, a department email obtained by Reuters showed.
License refusals could crimp the 2 billion euros in worldwide civil and military sales that the company, known as TAS, posted in 2010.
They also could force a costly product-line revamp and strain US ties with France.
The threat escalates the United States' multi-year push for details on the design and components of a watershed telecommunications satellite that TAS has labelled as free of US parts and therefore exempt from US export controls.
The State Department holds that the satellite is not free of license-requiring US parts, and that TAS illegally exported it to China, according to a department summary of actions in the case provided to two congressional committees.
The issue is especially sensitive because US intelligence officials have accused Beijing of wide-ranging covert efforts to steal US technology secrets for economic and military advantage over the United States.
Washington bars satellites containing US parts and US design know-how from launch by China as part of sanctions imposed after the 1989 crushing of the pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Such US technology is subject to so-called International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, a set of State Department-enforced rules governing arms trade.
TAS describes its Spacebus 4000C2 as the West's first commercial communications satellite without so much as a US bolt, screw or piece of insulation subject to US control. The company said it has sold eight such “unrestricted” satellites to international customers, five of them already launched by China with the other three to follow. - Reuters