China has vowed to strengthen and improve its export-control measures to safeguard its interests, in a bid to mitigate some of the fallout from a rapidly intensifying trade war with the United States.
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The Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) said it will accelerate efforts to strengthen the country’s export control system and improve enforcement, as it navigates an “increasingly complex and challenging global environment”.
“We will step up item classification, tighten licensing enforcement, expand multilateral and bilateral dialogue on export controls, and promote compliance frameworks,” the ministry said at an export-control work meeting in Beijing on Thursday.
“These efforts aim to further modernise China’s national export-control system and better safeguard the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”
While the statement did not explicitly mention the United States, it came amid escalating trade tensions with Washington. And to date, all of Beijing’s export-control lists have targeted US entities.
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After the series of back-and-forth tariff salvoes, as it stands, Washington has imposed a 125 per cent tariff on Chinese imports this year, bringing the effective tariff rate to about 136 per cent. Meanwhile, Beijing’s new levy on US goods has risen to 84 per cent, also on top of earlier-imposed tariffs.
And China also carried out other countermeasures by imposing export controls on 28 US entities in two separate rounds, while also adding an additional 17 American firms to its unreliable-entities list.