Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee Chairman Li Zhanshu said on March 8 that the NPC’s foreign-related legislation in the coming year will target “anti-sanctions, anti-interference, and counteracting long-arm jurisdiction.
Xinhua said Li Zhanshu proposed the legislative plan in his work report at the just-concluded NPC session to “enrich the legal ‘toolbox’ for dealing with challenges and preventing risks.
Previously, Communist Party President Xi Jinping in November 2020 called for legal means to defend China’s sovereignty, security and development interests and promote the “rule of law in foreign affairs.
Li Zhanshu’s proposed legislative move by the National People’s Congress is seen as China’s way of concretely advancing the legal process to counterbalance the long-arm jurisdiction of Western countries, particularly the United States. However, Chinese public opinion has been watching from multiple angles to see how effective it is.
Top U.S. and Chinese officials sanctioned by each other
Long arm jurisdiction” is a U.S. legal term originally used for interstate litigation in the United States, but later extended to an international context, including the U.S. “long arm jurisdiction” over non-U.S. nationals and businesses under its domestic laws. The term “arm jurisdiction” was originally used in interstate litigation in the United States, but has since been expanded to an international context, including U.S. “long-arm jurisdiction” over non-U.S. nationals and businesses under its domestic laws.
Reuters said that the U.S. has expressed its concerns about China’s practices on issues related to the border and Hong Kong by imposing economic sanctions and threatening to use them. The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Dec. 7 last year that it was sanctioning 14 vice chairmen of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress, barring them and their families from entering the United States, and that these people’s assets in the United States would be frozen.
These senior Chinese officials include: Cai Dafeng, Cao Jianming, Chen Zhu, Baima Chilin, Ding Zhongli, Hao Mingjin, Ai Liqin Yimingbhai, Ji Bingxuan, Shen Yueyue, Wan Exiang, Wang Chen, Wang Dongming, Wu Weihua, and Zhang Chunxian. Also sanctioned by the U.S. are Chen Guanguo, Party Secretary of Xinjiang, and Luo Huining, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam was also sanctioned by the U.S. for her role in the Hong Kong issue, with local banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and DBS responding to the sanctions by freezing her accounts to date. Reuters reported that the chief executive, who earns 400,000 Hong Kong dollars a month, told reporters that she “buys all kinds of things with cash every day.
Shortly after Biden‘s inauguration, China announced sanctions against senior U.S. officials in the Trump administration. China’s Global Times reported under the headline “28 People Who Hurt China Now It’s Their Turn to Hurt! Former Secretary of State Pompeo, trade policy hawk Navarro, Trump’s national security team chief O’Brien, and former State Department East Asian affairs chief Stalwell were among those named, the Global Times reported.
Is it realistic to sanction senior foreign officials?
Some Chinese public opinion believes that sanctioning 28 senior U.S. officials is more symbolic than practical, as it is hard to envision that these people have deposits and luxury homes in China that can be frozen by China.
A retired professor from a university in Xi’an, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Voice of America: “In the United States, in Europe, in democratic countries, where are the officials who have deposits in Chinese banks? What are you sanctioning them for? I’m afraid that the officials of these countries do not have the need to immigrate to China, and their sons and grandchildren, it is difficult to have this need, they can not come to China, there are plenty of places to go, this legislation is only symbolic.
He said, for the long-armed jurisdiction of the United States, China must put up a posture, “Since you have sanctioned me, I also have to say something, and can not just do that, not say anything. As a country, this is also normal, and totalitarian regimes are always like this, tough talk. However, it’s not much use to reciprocate sanctions on people”.
However, the report quoted Mo Jihong, an international law scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying that legislation in the foreign-related field has practical significance, which is “a bridge between the domestic and international rule of law, and is an inevitable product of China’s rule of law practice in the process of introducing and going global. In the face of the so-called “long-arm jurisdiction” of some countries, we must use legal weapons to resolutely counter it, and use the rule of law thinking and rule of law to deal with the challenge.”
Sanctions against senior Chinese Communist Party officials seem realistic
Chen Guanguo, secretary of the Xinjiang Party Committee, who was sanctioned by the U.S., said he “has no interest at all in going to the United States and does not have a single cent of assets there,” and Locke Hui-ning, director of Hong Kong’s Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, said after being sanctioned that he “does not have a single cent abroad.”
Mr. Zhang, a resident of Zhejiang, said that, unfortunately, information on the finances and Family members of senior Communist Party officials is a state secret and the public can only see it in a fog, because the public disclosure of officials’ assets and the real lives of them and their families are off-limits for comment in China.
Mr. Zhang said, “The situation in China is actually the opposite. No matter what kind of leader you are, central, local, there is definitely a need for this. The children of senior Communist Party officials studying and settling abroad are still few and far between. Whether they come back or not is another matter. There are many such officials because the best universities and the most stable and livable places are in the United States, although there are many unsatisfactory aspects of these Western countries.
Mr. Zhang said, “Isn’t there a so-called ‘naked official’ in the Chinese Communist Party? It’s about getting their wives and children to foreign countries, and even though they say they have no overseas assets and the need to retire and settle overseas, in the United States or Europe, their sons, daughters, daughters-in-law and grandchildren may have migrated to other countries such as the United States, or are preparing to do so.”
Because of this, Mr. Zhang said, the long-arm jurisdiction of the U.S. over the Chinese officials involved has an impact, not to say on each of them all, but on a significant number of them.
Mr. Zhang added that the situation of senior Hong Kong officials is unique, in the case of Carrie Lam, for example, whose monthly income is publicly available, which is slightly different from that of senior mainland Chinese officials.
There is also analysis that China can sanction U.S. officials, the problem is that the U.S. and other Western countries are different from the Chinese officials, the Chinese Communist Party senior officials as long as they follow the party, not lifelong is almost the same; Western countries officials like a walking lamp, a crop of change, once you do not do official, open road to go away.
The respective gains and losses of the U.S.-China game
Reuters said that China had in fact taken certain actions prior to its push for anti-long-arm jurisdiction legislation; for example, after Canada arrested huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 in response to a U.S. extradition request, China then denounced Canada’s arrest and took a series of direct and indirect actions to secure Meng’s release.
The Measures to Block the Improper Extraterritorial Application of Foreign Laws and Measures, issued and implemented by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on January 9, 2021, pursuant to China’s National Security Law, provides that once the Chinese authorities determine that the restrictions of a foreign decree are improper, they may issue a “no recognition, no enforcement, no compliance” ban, which applies to This prohibition applies to third-party companies that conduct business in China.
However, some analysts argue that the MOFCOM approach was developed only to stop the improper extraterritorial application of foreign laws and measures and to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese entities. Whether it can effectively resist regulation and sanctions by the U.S. or other countries against Chinese entities, and long-arm jurisdiction, remains to be tested by practice and Time.
On the other hand, the U.S. uses long-arm jurisdiction to impose sanctions, often using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system as a weapon, and some netizens say, “The U.S. government is doing something stupid. On the surface, this financial weapon can choke all financial channels and sanction senior foreign officials, including China, “in fact, by doing this action is tantamount to pressing the button of global countries to promote their own sovereign digital currency. This process has now become irreversible, which is the end of the line for the United States.
Social Observer” said, “I hope our (Chinese) government will be more swift and forceful in countering the hostile actions of the United States. Such a counter-attack should not only involve the use of legal means to reciprocally implement relevant measures, but also the rapid upgrading of China’s ability to act autonomously in relevant areas, including the establishment of our global settlement system.
However, netizen “Little Passenger” said, “Many of the rules have been in place since World War II in more than 200 countries around the world, under the domination of the United States and the West, and China joined the United Nations in 1972, 30 years too late. China should “immediately push the digital yuan to the rest of the world and break the hegemony of the dollar!”
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