China said it will retaliate for U.S. sanctions against 14 National People’s Congress Standing Committee officials (see 2012070024), calling the moves damaging to U.S.-China relations. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the sanctions were imposed with “vicious intent” and urged the U.S. to reverse them. “We have this solemn message for the United States: The Chinese government is firmly determined to oppose U.S. interference in Hong Kong affairs, to uphold China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and to implement ‘one country, two systems,’” the spokesperson said Dec. 8. “In response to the egregious act by the U.S. side, China will take firm and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty, security and development interests.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Dec. 7 issued two new frequently asked questions and updated four additional FAQs related to a January executive order that expanded U.S. sanctions authority against Iran (see 2001100050). The two new FAQs clarify whether transactions related to international organizations and Iran’s participation in international legal proceedings are subject to secondary sanctions.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued two sets of sanctions, one targeting Iran’s military, the other shipping companies transporting North Korean coal. The Dec. 8 announcements target two people, seven entities and four vessels.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs began reviewing a final Bureau of Industry and Security rule concerning Sudan. The rule, received by OIRA Dec. 3, would revise the Export Administration Regulations to reflect the U.S. rescission of Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (see 2011020012).
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The Commerce Department will not publish its long-awaited proposed regulations on routed export transactions (see 2007150044) this year and is experiencing delays on other rules, including another set of export controls from the 2019 Wassenaar Arrangement, a Commerce official said. Hillary Hess, the Bureau of Industry and Security’s regulatory policy director, cited a combination of internal BIS delays and a backlog at the Federal Register for the slowdown.
China's attempts at using economic tools, such as export controls on rare earth minerals or punishing imports from Australia, have only been somewhat successful, according to Maximilian Ernst, the speaker on the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies webinar Dec. 7, called “How to Respond to China’s Carrots and Sticks? Prospects of a Transatlantic Response to Chinese Economic Coercion.” Ernst is researching Chinese coercion for a Ph.D.
The Council of the European Union adopted its long-awaited human rights sanctions regime (see 2010210008), giving the EU the ability to designate people and entities that commit crimes against humanity or other “serious human rights violations,” the EU said Dec. 7. The regime will allow the EU to impose travel bans and asset freezes on violators and will block people and entities in the EU from “making funds available” to entries on the sanctions list, either “directly or indirectly,” the EU said.
The U.S. sanctioned 14 officials on China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee associated with Hong Kong’s so-called national security law, the latest escalation in a series of U.S. designations aimed at Beijing. The sanctions target various NPCSC vice chairpersons who were involved in “developing, adopting, or implementing” the law, which has allowed Beijing to “stifle dissent” and arrest pro-democracy advocates, the State Department said Dec. 7.
China reportedly has developed a supercomputer that gives it an advantage in quantum computing, an emerging technology category that the U.S. has sought to prevent China from dominating. The computer can perform certain computations 100 trillion times faster than the world’s fastest existing supercomputer, giving China a “quantum computational advantage,” or “quantum supremacy,” Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, reported Dec. 4. Chinese researchers also said the computer can perform certain processes 10 billion times faster than the quantum computer developed by Google. The Bureau of Industry and Security is considering export controls on certain technology related to quantum computers, with those restrictions in their final rule stage as of July (see 2007140027). A BIS spokesperson said the agency continues to “evaluate and identify technologies that warrant control.”