Rules beyond borders | Editorial Comment

The People’s Republic of China has long asserted that it does not intend to disrupt the rule-based order in the course of its rise to great-power status. Several recent developments indicate, however, that it has a view of its new status, which encompasses its right to exert judicial authority beyond its boundaries. This marks both a consequential change in the operating environment for global businesses and a new challenge to both the United States (US) and the broader international order. In a recent series of laws, the Chinese government has sought to target companies’ global operations, using a deliberately broad set of definitions for law-breaking. Some of these directly penalise companies for complying with other countries’ existing laws. Others are clearly retributive, targeting companies that have themselves followed other countries’ sanctions on China. Yet others deal with fomenting “ethnic discord”, deliberately vague — but probably including those that comply with Western regulations meant to minimise the oppression of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province, among others. It is one thing to have such laws on the books; it is quite another to actually implement them. But a recent prohibition order that was directed at compliance with US sanctions indicates that some in the Chinese Communist Party’s hierarchy intend at least to try.