BEIJING – Increasing pressure from major world powers gives the Chinese government more opportunities to showcase its new approach to international affairs.
In the first coordinated action by Western countries since US President Joe Biden, the US, EU, UK and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials. The countries cited human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China – accusations that Beijing has repeatedly denied.
China’s Foreign Ministry responded quickly with its own broad list of sanctions against EU entities and individuals. These people and their families will not be able to enter mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao, and associated companies and institutions will, according to the ministry, be restricted from doing business with China.
The extent of the consequences set out in these sanctions and those announced just when Biden was sworn in differ from more vague sanctions in the past, Nick Turner, a lawyer for the law firm Steptoe & Johnson, showed in Hong Kong. . Its subject coverage includes economic sanctions.
“It shows the natural course of evolution for a great power,” Turner said. “We can put it in terms of reactions only to the West, but … I think it’s a natural course of development.”
China has grown into the world’s second largest economy in the last two decades. Its leader, President Xi Jinping, abolished the terms of the term and sought more control locally, while allowing for the development of a more aggressively colored diplomatic voice. In July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also established the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Research Center in Beijing.
And at an annual parliamentary session earlier this month, China announced that it would promote foreign law, including countermeasures for sanctions.
Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, said Beijing could announce similar restrictions on individuals from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States in retaliation for the latest sanctions.
“You will notice that under Xi Jinping it has become a signature of a diplomatic movement that China will reflect and strengthen everything that is done about it, in the way of sanctions,” Daly said on CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Tuesday. said.
CNen’s Yen No Lee contributed to this report.