China’s ‘anti-foreign sanctions law’ came into effect on June 10, and the intention expressed by the official media is clear: China has since acquired an anti-foreign sanctions weapon, anti-foreign, for the Chinese side, mainly anti-American and anti-Western.
Observers have analyzed that China’s adoption of such an ‘anti-foreign sanctions law’ is an urgent necessity, and that is, after China’s intensified confrontation with the U.S. and the West, which has continued to trigger Western sanctions against senior Chinese officials and entities in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, as well as in the main trade area, China continues to find such a way to make itself China continues to find such a weapon to “legitimize” itself against the West. For its part, AFP analyzed that China needs this to relieve the pressure.
Article 3 of the new law states that China is opposed to hegemony and power politics, and to interference in China’s internal affairs by any country under any pretext and by any means. Rather than being a legal provision, it feels like a speech by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
The article also says that if foreign countries violate international law and basic norms of international relations, contain or suppress China on various pretexts or in accordance with their own laws, take discriminatory and restrictive measures against Chinese citizens and organizations, and interfere in China’s internal affairs, China has the right to take corresponding countermeasures.
The above rhetoric shows that China classifies any Western countries’ sanctions against China for human rights issues, undermining Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” and mass suppression of Uighurs as “interference in China’s internal affairs” and sanctions against China based on laws, such as the Hong Kong Act, Xinjiang Act and Tibet Act passed by the U.S. in recent years, all of which can The U.S. has passed the Hong Kong Act, the Xinjiang Act, and the Tibet Act in recent years, all of which “conform” to the provisions of the “containment, suppression, and discriminatory restrictive measures against our citizens and organizations on various pretexts or in accordance with the laws of their own countries,” and therefore violate China’s ‘anti-sanctions law. ‘.
As such, it is a sanctions law that threatens foreign countries not to sanction China.
The specific sanctions provided for in the new law are almost a copy of those imposed by the United States on senior Chinese officials and entities, but with a change in subject matter, including, for example, the denial of visas, denial of entry, cancellation of visas, or expulsion from China; and the seizure, attachment, and freezing of movable, immovable, and other types of property in China.
How effective is such an anti-foreign sanctions law, and can it deter the United States and Western countries from continuing to sanction China over human rights and trade issues in the future? Wang Jiangyu, a professor at City University of Hong Kong, told Reuters that China previously had neither the national power nor the political will to use legal means to counteract U.S. sanctions, but that it would henceforth have both.
In fact, China has already taken countermeasures against the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on senior Chinese officials and entities, and at the height of the trade war, China also “reciprocated” each time the United States took a tariff increase, only when the United States trade deficit with China was huge and therefore the amount of punitive tariffs against China was getting bigger, Beijing could not continue later. “reciprocal countermeasures”.
China’s anti-foreign sanctions law comes in response to Europe and the United States, but judging from the fact that China’s successive counter-measures have not been able to stop the United States from imposing sanctions again and again, China has been unable to stop the United States. The EU has limited sanctions against China, with only one notable example since June 4, when it first issued a sanctions order a few weeks ago against senior Chinese officials and entities involved in human rights in Xinjiang Uighur, and China then took a strong and highly asymmetrical countermeasure, resulting in the collapse of the ‘China-EU Investment Agreement’ that Xi Jinping had painstakingly negotiated with the EU in late December last year. This move admittedly did not pay off for China.
Some countries are not sanctioning China to trigger countermeasures, such as Australia. Australia simply because of the refusal of Huawei to participate in the construction of 5G, led by the international community to propose an independent investigation of the source of the new crown virus and anger China, China for this reason unilaterally multiple batches of sanctions against Australia, the results of sanctions, to bring some loss of Australian agricultural products, but China invariably inflated the price of Australian iron ore, and finally China’s own interests are damaged.
Feng Chongyi, a professor at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney, told Free Asia that China tends to overestimate its own strength by taking a tooth-for-tongue approach to foreign sanctions. Their mentality is to overestimate Xi’s prowess by far and China’s strength by far,” he said. He is sometimes fooling himself into thinking they are really that powerful. He has imposed sanctions on Australia, on the EU, thinking that the EU and Australia are very dependent on China economically.”
Woodcock, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters, “China seems to be very anxious and acting in such a way that is bad for attracting foreign investment to reassure foreign companies. They feel they will increasingly be used as ready pawns on a political chessboard.”
Others have commented that sanctions by denial of visas, denial of entry, seizure, sequestration, freezing of movable or immovable property are more effective when used by the United States against China than the other way around. The U.S. remains the most visited country by many Chinese, especially the children of families of high-ranking officials, because of the serious disparity in the movement of people between the U.S. and China.
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