Abstract
In March, China’s Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs criticized European Union (EU) sanctions against Chinese enterprises, calling on the bloc to “return to the right track” and cancel the measures. A few months earlier, adopting a brusque approach to similar American sanctions on Chinese entities, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the use of sanctions “illegal”. However, on that instance the condemnation was accompanied by action, as Beijing decided to adopt an equivalent tool of economic statecraft against US-based defense companies by invoking its newly-enacted Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (AFSL). Referring to Western sanctions as wrong, or a violation of China’s rights and interests but to its own as simply “countermeasures”, Beijing attempted to simultaneously highlight the impropriety of Western sanctions while justifying its own.
As a long-term target of sanctions but, more recently, acquiring the economic leverage to be able to impose them on other states, China has a unique perceptive on sanctions. Despite vociferously campaigning for decades against the West’s imposition of unilateral sanctions, China has since performed a complete volte-face by developing its own formal sanctions regime. Since 2018, Beijing has enacted no fewer than nine legislative sanctions provisions, giving it serious firepower to employ tools of economic warfare commensurate with its status as an emerging superpower.
Yet this does not tell the whole story. While Beijing’s new formalized sanctions regime is a momentous development, and one that raises normative questions about the conduct of orderly affairs in a world where multiple states might practise economic coercion, there exists a broader hinterland of Chinese sanctions. In fact, China has practiced economic statecraft throughout its modern history, albeit such measures are largely taken on an informal basis to confer plausible deniability. And yet by continuing to maintain its anti-sanctions rhetoric China is being reticent at best and nefarious at worst about its sanctions policy. In view of the potential of the Chinese economy to impact the flows of global trade, Beijing’s decision to develop a comprehensive sanctions regime deserves closer attention. In particular it is instructional to decipher how China is presenting this formalized approach given its obvious discomfort with sanctions.
As a long-term target of sanctions but, more recently, acquiring the economic leverage to be able to impose them on other states, China has a unique perceptive on sanctions. Despite vociferously campaigning for decades against the West’s imposition of unilateral sanctions, China has since performed a complete volte-face by developing its own formal sanctions regime. Since 2018, Beijing has enacted no fewer than nine legislative sanctions provisions, giving it serious firepower to employ tools of economic warfare commensurate with its status as an emerging superpower.
Yet this does not tell the whole story. While Beijing’s new formalized sanctions regime is a momentous development, and one that raises normative questions about the conduct of orderly affairs in a world where multiple states might practise economic coercion, there exists a broader hinterland of Chinese sanctions. In fact, China has practiced economic statecraft throughout its modern history, albeit such measures are largely taken on an informal basis to confer plausible deniability. And yet by continuing to maintain its anti-sanctions rhetoric China is being reticent at best and nefarious at worst about its sanctions policy. In view of the potential of the Chinese economy to impact the flows of global trade, Beijing’s decision to develop a comprehensive sanctions regime deserves closer attention. In particular it is instructional to decipher how China is presenting this formalized approach given its obvious discomfort with sanctions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | E-International Relations |
| Publication status | Published - 7 Apr 2024 |
