The settlement announced this week between Boeing Satellite Systems, Hughes Electronics [GMH] and the U.S. State Department resolving technology transfer violations stemming from Chinese launch failure reviews in 1995 and 1996 likely will not spur a wave of new satellite exports.

Tim Logue, a telecommunications consultant in the Washington office of the Coudert Brothers law firm, said the relations between the United States and China are complicated by other issues, such as the war on terrorism, North Korea and “almost always” human rights in China.

High-tech exports to China “very much” get ensnared in issues related to bilateral relations between the two countries and therefore is difficult to predict when the launch of U.S.-built payloads on China’s Long March rockets might again become a “regular item,” Logue said. “Certainly the competition among Western launch services providers and the dearth of new payloads for them reduces the pressure on this issue for the moment,” he added.