The View | China’s anti-sanctions law: how companies can avoid picking a side

Name: China passes anti-sanctions law to counter punitive action by foreign countries
Uploaded: 2021-06-16T14:00:00.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
Description: China passes anti-sanctions law to counter punitive action by foreign countries

If the new law is similar to the European Union’s ‘blocking statute’, it may force companies to choose between the US or the Chinese market or motivate them to lobby the US to lift sanctions on China

A third option might be for companies to split into two separate entities serving both markets

Reading Time:4 minutes

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People shop at a duty-free shopping mall in Sanya, in China’s Hainan province, in October 2020. Foreign companies have been keen to tap China’s consumer market, but geopolitical tensions have complicated the picture. Photo: Xinhua

Benjamin PoonandZhigang Tao

Published: 10:00pm, 16 Jun 2021Updated: 11:03pm, 16 Jun 2021

The National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed the new anti-sanctions law at its closing session, writing a new chapter in the ongoing Sino-US clash.

While the details are yet unknown, foreign multinationals operating in China are anxious to know how it would affect their future business strategy.

In 2018, then US president Donald Trump began to impose heavy tariffs on Chinese exports, sparking the Sino-US trade war. The battlefield soon shifted, as Chinese tech giants ZTE and Huawei were accused of compromising US national security.

Since last year, many government officials were sanctioned in response to alleged human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.

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China passes anti-sanctions law to counter punitive action by foreign countries

Beijing’s responses have largely fallen flat. The Chinese government has repeatedly called for the US to drop these sanctions to no avail.