Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China.
The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium.
Companies and people overseas would be subject to those restrictions, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday. “Any organization or individual from any country or region that violates the above provisions and transfers or provides relevant dual-use items originating in the People’s Republic of China to organizations or individuals in the United States will be held accountable according to law.”
Photo: AP
The decision marks the first time China is employing controls that extend to products with both civilian and military uses. The rules went into effect on Sunday and allow for application similar to the US Export Administration Regulations, according to a report from the law firm Covington & Burling, which noted that there are “few details” on when this extraterritoriality would be invoked.
The precedent-setting move amounts to an escalation with the US weeks before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office.
China is the top global supplier of dozens of critical minerals, and concerns about its dominance have been mounting in Washington since Beijing placed initial controls on exports of gallium and germanium last year.
“I’m not aware of another such case under the current regulatory regime,” said Cory Combs, an associate director at research firm Trivium China. “For companies, the extraterritorial application means they shouldn’t bank on any loopholes to keep supplies flowing. Simply put, companies using the affected inputs need to find alternative supplies ASAP.”
The new provisions build on earlier language in the 2020 export control legislation, which also said that the law applied to individuals or organizations inside or outside of China, Combs said.
In recent years, the Chinese government has been strengthening its toolbox to push back against US sanctions and trade controls, creating the “Unreliable Entity List” and “Export Control Law” in 2020 and the “Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law” in 2021.
It also passed a National Security Law for Hong Kong, which claimed jurisdiction over acts committed outside China’s territories.
While the new formulations in the rules are concerning, “we don’t yet have a clear consensus view on how far Beijing might go to investigate or punish third countries suspected of prohibited re-exports,” Combs said.
“The language primarily serves to close the potential loophole for domestic firms to try to reroute exports as opposed to seeking a new avenue to punish third countries,” he said.
“Beijing’s new export controls will likely fall short of Washington’s in international surveillance, compliance and enforcement. Beijing’s statement vaguely threatens countries that help the US evade the controls,” Gerard DiPippo, Maeva Cousin and Nicole Gorton-Caratelli of Bloomberg Economics said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS