I Don't Understand The "Clinton Sold Super Computers To China" Argument

Fat boy Terry Jeffries was just on Wolfie, and he pulled out the old ""but Clinton sold super computers to China" meme
to defend *'s non-policy on China.

Is this really a problem at this point in time? Clinton eased the sale of chip technology to China back in 2000, arguing
that computer processing speeds were increasing so quickly that really fast chips would soon be available in the
commercial machines that many people used. I'm trying to imagine what computer speeds were like back in 2000,
not to mention the size of HDs. Opponents argued that such technology would be used primarly to develop weapons
systems. China unveiled its first super computer in 2002.

So, my question is whether or not this is a legitimate talking point in 2006, or is it just the recycling of a now-outdated bromide
that the Rs used back in 2000 to bash Clinton.

Opinions? Facts? Anyone?

in 1972 (or there abouts). This is just more RW cherrypicking of one fact (that it continued) and building a cottage industry around it.

IBM sale to Lenovo is a much bigger threat than the ports deal IMHO.

"look what this hand is doing, not this hand."

Apple was making some marketing points out of this.

Also in 2000, technologies for clustering lots of more ordinary PCs were avaialble, that allowed creating "supercomputers" out of a bunch of common cheap dell/gateway junk.

The argument was bogus.

at the time that clusters of small, commercially available computers could be used for supercomputing applications. My understanding is that this possibility was taken into account and not every chip was made available overseas because of this.

both parties equally share the blame for this in my opinion.

satellites up to build a network so that cell phones could be used everywhere. The original company that was working on it failed and another company took over. All these satellites had to be put in orbit at roughly the same time so they were going to be launched at various places around the world. One place was Vandenberg AFB, one was in Russia, one was in France and one was going to be in China. The Chinese did not have the rocket technology to launch the satellites and the company asked the Clinton administration for permission to go to China and help with the rocket launching. They got permission and the technology given to the Chinese could also be used to launch ICBMs. So the right wing jumped on this to say that Clinton gave computer and rocket technology to the Chinese in exchange for campaign donations.

This is a very rough telling of all of this. I don't remember it clearly and I got it from by now dead father-in-law who worked on such things for Northrup.

This may be what they are talking about.

It was the Loral Group and Reagan had granted them a waiver to provide certain high tech navigational systems for their satellite rockets. The Chinese were launching a lot of Private satellites and needed the technology because they were having some very costly problems and most of the Private Companies were from the West. What Clinton did was renew that same waiver. The freeper element of the GOP started freaking out about how now the Chinese now had the ability to hit the US effectively with their Intercontinental ballistic missles. That is a true fact but thank goodness we have dishnet TV...