By: Songling Yang
PDF: China's Approach
This contribution undertakes an appraisal of the latest of China’s legislation concerning anti-foreign sanctions measures, which aim to pressure target countries into abandoning their discriminatory sanctions against China. These recent tit-for-tat measures may face challenges regarding their legality under international tribunals. In the current context of weaponized economic coercion, these international adjudications could provide institutionalized dialogue for distinguishing legitimate anti-foreign sanctions from impermissible ones. This Article seeks to determine whether China’s anti-foreign sanctions measures can be considered “countermeasures” as stipulated in the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts; why the justification of China’s anti-foreign sanctions measures based on Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) will be highly debated in World Trade Organization (WTO) adjudications; and what challenges China faces in invoking national security exception clauses under investment treaties to defend its anti-foreign sanctions measures, which may derogate from investment treaty obligations. This Article primarily advises China to clarify its qualification of foreign sanctions measures as an “emergency in international relations” when its security interest is weak, increasingly use the phrase “it considers” in national exception clauses, and fully demonstrate the necessity of anti-foreign sanctions measures to safeguard its essential security interests.