China drafts law to counter sanctions

BEIJING. – China’s top legislative body is set to pass a new anti-sanction law on Thursday, giving substantive legal backing and protection to the country’s retaliatory measures against punitive actions by Western governments on Chinese officials and companies.

State media announced yesterday the latest move by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee to counter the United States and its allies which have been piling pressure on Beijing over such issues as Hong Kong’s freedoms and the treatment of the Uygur minority in Xinjiang.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that the new law was aimed at offering a legal basis for the central government to take retaliatory measures against foreign sanctions, but stopped short of fleshing out details of the legislation.

The bid to pass such a law comes after China imposed new rules at the start of the year against what it called “unjustified” foreign action against its citizens and businesses. The rules were meant to defend national interests in the face of a rash of sanctions from Washington on Chinese tech firms and officials, Beijing said then.

The measures revealed in January, called “counteracting unjustified extraterritorial application of foreign legislation”, were seen then as a robust response to Washington’s reliance on its so-called long-arm jurisdiction that allows it to prosecute entities with links to its own authority.

But analysts said the rules lacked details and they did not expect test cases to surface immediately.

Yesterday’s announcement of the new law appeared to build upon and give legal teeth to the “blocking rules” revealed in January which allow aggrieved parties to report damages to the commerce ministry and sue for compensation in Chinese courts.

A slew of Chinese companies have been targeted by the US, including most notably telecommunications giant Huawei, which has been subject to restrictions aimed at cutting it off from key components made with American technology. – SCMP.com