China urged to flex long-arm jurisdiction to protect its companies from foreign hostility
- Prominent Chinese finance professor Liu Shuwei says Beijing should develop its powers of extraterritorial jurisdiction to match the US and Europe
- New capabilities were urgently needed to regulate foreign investigations into Chinese firms and violations of Chinese law by foreign organisations, she says
China should learn from the United States and Europe and further develop its powers to protect Chinese law to cover actions by foreign entities — so-called long-arm jurisdiction — to counter sanctions and protect its companies abroad, a well-known finance professor said on Tuesday.
The comments from Liu Shuwei, director of the China enterprise research centre at the Central University of Economics and Finance, comes amid mounting tension between the US and China that has seen American authorities target Chinese firms with legislation on national security grounds.
Beijing has regularly slammed unilateral sanctions based on US domestic laws, but it is believed to have only limited options to counter them.
US [long-arm] jurisdiction is so far the most mature in the world, and also deserves our study the most,
Liu, who built her reputation fighting financial fraud, said China should develop a reciprocal capability by revising domestic laws, including those on export controls, the safeguarding of state secrets, international criminal judicial help, cybersecurity, commercial banking and data security.
