The Bureau of Industry and Security – the agency Washington relies on to implement export licensing controls to ensure sanctioned technology doesn't reach certain nations – revealed on Tuesday it's struggling to handle a massively increased workload caused by the ever-growing number of Chinese companies added to the US Entity List, thanks to geriatric technology and systems.
BIS has historically used a heavily manual process designed in 2006 to collect licensing data – a method it acknowledged occupies considerable resources and subjects it to the risk of human error. The regulatory agency declared it is committed to working with Congress to secure funding that will allow it to modernize the central licensing system.
But just because BIS processes are the same doesn't mean its policies are. For example, it's introduced a Foreign Direct Product Rule which it has applied to Huawei – a move it defends as having" the US government unprecedented control over and insight into these entities' access to US technology and foreign-produced items" subjected to the rule.