Lawfare from China
Laws to target foreign companies, China enjoys the U.S retreat from the world, mixed economic messages, and more.
This is The China Week, a succinct roundup of what happened in the world’s other superpower in the last seven days.
The main story this week is about China’s new legal tools to punish foreign (which mostly means American) organizations that enact sanctions or other punitive economic measures on Chinese government organizations and companies. But our second story today is also really noteworthy: traditional allies of the U.S. are lining up to meet Xi Jinping and other senior Chinese leaders, in search of stability as the Trump and Musk government nuke the post-World War II order.
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These are some other things I’ve worked on recently:
At ChinaFile: ‘Survival Comes First’: A translation of an interview with an anonymous Gen Z “content moderator” for a major Chinese internet platform whose job is censoring articles and social media posts.
At my Rhyming Chaos Podcast: Pol Pot's Cambodia, Musk and Trump's America
From Year Zero to Project 2025: A conversation with author and journalist Elizabeth Becker.
If you’re looking for a China related job, the latest Career China newsletter is out, with listings of all kinds of jobs around the world that are connected with the Middle Kingdom.
—Jeremy Goldkorn
Lawfare
New anti-sanctions and IPR laws
China has released two sets of new laws that will affect foreign companies, and give Beijing legal tools to punish American and other companies if their governments target China:
New Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law provisions
China passed an Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law in 2021 as a legal tool to counter the growing number of sanctions and restrictions that the U.S. began to place on Chinese entities during the first Trump administration, a trend which continued under Biden.
On March 21, Beijing released new “provisions” relating to the law, which strengthens China’s legal toolkit to sanction any “foreign country, organization, or individual that implements, assists, or supports acts” that endanger China’s “sovereignty, security, and development interests.” The penalties China can impose include freezing assets, and bans on business in and travel to China.
According to research firm Trivium: “Issuing these regulations indicates that Beijing is getting ready to use the law in earnest,” and they are “a stark warning to [multinational corporations] that compliance with foreign sanctions carries substantial risk in the China market.”
Rule to counter “discriminatory” measures in international IP disputes
China’s State Council, the country’s government (which is supposed to but does not have any meaningful separation from the Communist Party, “said a new IP rule would come into effect on May 1 as part of a set of regulations on the settlement of foreign-related intellectual property disputes,” reports the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
“Although the regulation does not single out any country,” says the SCMP, “it appears to target the U.S. and European Union, which have accused China of intellectual property (IP) rights infringement and forced technology transfer in trade disputes.”
As the U.S, retreats, China advances
European, Japanese, and Korean leaders come to Beijing
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit China in April for talks with Xi Jinping. Italy's Senate President Ignazio La Russa is in Beijing today (March 25) meeting senior officials, and so is Portugal's Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel. Norwegian Foreign Vice Minister Andreas Kravik said on a visit to China earlier this month that China and Europe “must lean closer” as the Trump-led U.S. turns its back on multilateral world.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea, and China agreed on the weekend “to seek common ground on East Asian security and economic issues amid escalating global uncertainty.”
Economy, trends, consumers
Mixed economic messages, mostly bad
Big Chinese companies are starting to curb overtime work as young Chinese people rebel against over-demanding work schedules, and “anti-involution” is the buzzword, according to Real Time Mandarin.
However, chilling at home might be the only option for many young people: “The urban jobless rate for 16-to-24-year-olds, excluding students, grew to 16.9% from 16.1% in January, reports Reuters.
And restaurants in China are locked in a price war that is partly responsible for the shuttering of as many as a million catering businesses in the last year
Meanwhile, social media influencers in their 60s, 70s, or even 90s, “are not just keeping up with the times, they’re defining new cultural trends” says Shanghai marketing agency China Skinny.
Country matters
Xi Jinping in Guizhou and Yunnan
Xi Jinping visited the picturesque southwestern provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan where he paid homage to local ethnic minorities but also talked up the prospects of future industrialization.
Why it matters: It’s a sign of his commitment to the development of China’s poorest rural areas.
Pharma
The new drugs will come from China
“Chinese drug maker Akeso, whose new cancer drug has outperformed a leading Western peer in clinical studies, is being hailed as the ‘DeepSeek moment’ for China’s drug industry,” according to a rather boosterish article in the South China Morning Post. The new immunotherapy drug targets non-small cell lung cancer, and “allowed half of its patients to go 11.1 months without their condition worsening.”
In other drug news, AstraZeneca said it “will spend $2.5 billion on a research and development hub in Beijing, as the drugmaker scrambles to revive business in its second-biggest market after scandals including the arrest of its China president last year.”
Electric and flying cars, rockets
China is owning the skies and the roads
Chinese electric and hybrid car giant BYD’s annual sales topped $100 billion for the first time, surpassing Tesla.
Internal combustion engine and electric car maker Geely Automobile’s net profit in 2024 more than tripled to about $2.3 billion “on robust sales and record exports, helping cement the company as one of the leading players in China’s intensely competitive EV sector,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
A district of Shenzhen has set out new measures to provide financial incentives for drones, eVTOL aircraft, and other companies in the “low altitude economy.”
The Wall Street Journal reports on China’s growing private space sector, which is “racing to catch up to SpaceX.”
Squat versus sit
Toilets
Western-style sitting toilets are becoming more common in China, but many people don’t know how to use them. The topic of “sitting versus squat toilets sparked heated discussion” on Chinese social media, reports What’s On Weibo.
War watch
Taiwan blockade and cable cutting ships?
“China’s armed forces are more ready than ever to surround the self-ruled island of Taiwan, cut it off from the world and try to squeeze it into submission,” says the Wall Street Journal.
Related to this, a “compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China—and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics,” reports the South China Morning Post. Or as Taiwan-based Frenchman Pierre-Yves Baubry posted to Bluesky, “Country that denies having ever cut undersea cables adds new cable cutter to its float.”
Honey not vinegar
Easing up on foreign companies in China
“China has released all detained employees of U.S. due diligence firm Mintz Group, the company said, marking the end of a two-year saga that unnerved American businesses operating in the country,” reports the Wall Street Journal. The Financial Times story on this pointed to a reason behind the timing: China releases detained Mintz employees as Xi courts global CEOs, at the same time as a series of meetings between foreign CEOs and senior Chinese officials.