‘Sanctions deterrent’: China frames new Foreign Relations Law as essential to national sovereignty

Top diplomat Wang Yi says the legislation is needed to help the country expand its toolbox to cope with unpredictability
Wang does not refer to the West but says it is in response to containment and interference

China-EU relations

Orange Wang

Published: 5:06pm, 29 Jun 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

China’s new Foreign Relations Law will act as a “deterrent” to sanctions and is needed urgently to safeguard national sovereignty and security, according to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s most senior diplomacy adviser.

In an article published in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Thursday, Wang Yi said China was confronting a growing number of unpredictable factors and should continuously expand its legal “toolbox” for “foreign struggles”.

“[We should] make full use of the Foreign Relations Law as a legal tool – through legislative, law enforcement, judicial and other means – to carry out our fight in response to acts of containment, interference, sanctions and destruction,” Wang said in the article.

“The … law clearly opposes all hegemonism and power politics, and is against any unilateralism, protectionism and bullying acts … towards China.”

02:49

‘China will not challenge or replace the US’, Xi tells Blinken at crucial meeting

The legislation was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, on Wednesday and is meant to govern the country’s foreign policy.

It stipulates that Beijing has the right to take measures to counter and restrict actions that endanger the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests, violate international law or “fundamental norms of international relations”.

It also authorises the State Council – the country’s cabinet – and the executive branches of government to come up with regulations and systems to apply the countermeasures.

Washington has blacklisted more than 1,300 – and counting – Chinese entities on a range of alleged grounds, from ties to the military, to aiding Russia, human rights concerns in Xinjiang and contributing to the fentanyl public health crisis in the United States.

The sanctions have become a bone of contention between the two powers and was an important agenda item during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing earlier this month.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has repeatedly said Washington has no intention of stifling China’s rise but will continue to take “narrowly targeted actions” on the country for national security concerns.

The European Union has also sanctioned three China-based businesses over Russia’s war in Ukraine but the number was fewer than initially proposed.

In March, Xi hit out at the actions, referring to the restrictions as “all-around containment, encirclement and suppression of China” by US-led Western countries.

02:22

US federal agents arrest 2 men for running Chinese ‘secret police station’ in New York

Wang echoed that message in his article on Thursday, saying the legislation would play a “preventive, warning, and deterrent role, providing a legal basis for our country to lawfully exercise” its rights of counter sanctions and “interference”.

But he also said the country should also give equal importance to encouraging, supporting and protecting certain foreign-related activities.

The new law mandates China bolster cross-border law enforcement and international judicial cooperation, particularly in relation to “combating transnational crimes and corruption”.

There are growing concerns overseas about Beijing’s offshore law enforcement activities, including over China’s alleged “secret overseas police stations”.

In April, US authorities arrested two New York residents of Chinese descent suspected of operating one such station out of a commercial office in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Beijing denies the stations are used for extraterritorial law enforcement or overseas spying.