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The 2021 Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (AFSL) provided the statutory framework but left key terms — "other types of property," "transactions and cooperation activities," "discriminatory restrictive measures" — operationally undefined. PRC departments and courts lacked granular authority to act, and the AFSL's Countermeasure List (~100 designations through 2025) had not produced asset-freezing actions of consequence.
State Council Order 803 fills that gap with 22 articles structured across five blocks:
1. Defined countermeasure inventory. Article-by-article enumeration of restrictive measures available — refusing/cancelling visas, restricting/prohibiting entry, expulsion, sealing/seizure/ freezing of property, prohibiting/restricting transactions and cooperation, prohibiting export of items, prohibiting/restricting investment in China, prohibiting/restricting cross-border data transfers, revoking/restricting work permits, fines, and "other necessary measures." The expanded enumeration of property covers IP, equity, fund shares and accounts receivable — closing loopholes. 2. Procedural backbone. State Council departments are empowered to investigate, conduct foreign negotiations, and propose designations; the central inter-ministerial coordinating body issues final decisions identifying applicable subjects, specific measures, and effective dates. Deletion-from-list procedures are specified. 3. Binding effect on private actors. Article 11 obliges all PRC organisations and individuals — explicitly including foreign-invested entities operating in China — to implement countermeasures. This is the channel through which the AFSL reaches multinational subsidiaries' compliance with foreign sanctions: a parent's compliance with US OFAC/EU sanctions can trigger AFSL exposure for the PRC subsidiary. 4. Penalties for non-compliance. Failure to implement countermeasures can trigger administrative orders to correct, restrictions on government procurement, bidding, import/export, international service trade, cross-border data transfers and personal-information transfers, and exit/stay restrictions on responsible persons. 5. Anti-foreign-judicial-interference mechanism. Departments may take "necessary measures" against foreign judicial decisions or arbitral awards judged to harm Chinese interests — clarifying the legal basis under which PRC courts can issue anti-suit injunctions.
are the legal infrastructure beneath the China Dual-Use Export Control Regulations (2024-10-19, State Council Order, effective 1 Dec 2024) and the MOFCOM Unreliable Entity List provisions — forming a three-pillar PRC economic-security perimeter (export control / unreliable entity / counter-sanctions).
practitioners read Order 803 as moving the AFSL from political signal to enforceable compliance regime. The first contested AFSL court decision (RMB 99.7m Nanjing Maritime Court ruling detaining a vessel mid-2025) used the new procedural clarity.
voluntary compliance with foreign sanctions can now trigger AFSL liability for its PRC subsidiary, escalating the compliance squeeze first observed under the Hong Kong NSL.
lists data and personal-information transfers as a discrete countermeasure category — placing AFSL alongside DSL/PIPL/CSL in the data-sovereignty stack, with sanctions-driven (rather than security-driven) blocking authority.
List under the new format (analogous to the OFAC SDN list) or retain the case-by-case designation pattern.
Chinese-court rulings that PRC compliance with US OFAC sanctions is unlawful — creating a parallel-litigation risk where the same conduct is required in one jurisdiction and prohibited in another.
provisions on cross-border arbitration enforcement (HKIAC, SIAC, ICC) involving sanctioned PRC entities.