WASHINGTON, Sept 19: The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on the China and a Chinese firm for allegedly selling advanced missile technology to an unnamed country, the State Department said.

Although the purchasing country was not named, the company in question — China North Industries Incorporated — has been penalized by the US in the past and, as recently as July, for such sales to Iran.

However, some of Friday’s sanctions — imposed under the US Arms Control Export Act — also apply to the Chinese government, the State Department said in a notice published in the Federal Register.

The measures include a two-year ban on all US export licenses and new US government contracts for “all activities of the Chinese government relating to the development or production of missile equipment or technology and all activities of the Chinese government affecting the development or production of electronics, space systems or equipment and military aircraft,” it said.

A two-year ban on the import into the US of Chinese products related to those activities was waived until 2004, suggesting that Washington has an existing contract with Beijing that it wants fulfilled.

A determination “was made ... that it is essential to the national security of the United States to waive for a period of one year from the date of publication of this notice the import sanction,” the department said.

On July 5, a day after Washington slapped sanctions on China North, four other Chinese firms and a North Korean company for missile sales, Beijing reacted angrily.—AFP