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Order 835 sits alongside Order 834 (filed 2026-03-31) as the offensive / outward-projecting half of a paired State Council release: where Order 834 builds the defensive umbrella for PRC supply-chain integrity, Order 835 codifies how China identifies, designates and retaliates against foreign extraterritorial measures it deems improper. It is a separate State Council decree with its own statutory basis spanning the National Security Law, Foreign Relations Law, Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (AFSL), and the broader counter-sanctions architecture.
Key operative features:
establishes a working mechanism to plan and coordinate efforts responding to improper foreign extraterritorial jurisdiction.
legal affairs department (the Ministry of Justice in practice) determines whether a foreign measure is "improper" by weighing (i) violations of international law, (ii) appropriate connection between the foreign state and the regulated conduct, (iii) harm to China's sovereignty, security, development interests and the lawful rights of Chinese persons, and (iv) other relevant factors.
departments may designate foreign organisations and individuals that "promote or participate in implementing" improper extraterritorial measures. The list authorises nine categories of countermeasures including visa denial, asset freezing, restrictions on trade with PRC counterparties, and administrative fines. The word "promote" materially expands sanctionable conduct beyond direct enforcement to support, facilitation and advocacy — and is the structural innovation relative to the 2021 AFSL Counter-Sanctions List.
organisations facing conflicting foreign-law demands may apply to the State Council legal affairs department for approval to comply with the prohibited measure within a specified scope. This formalises a release valve absent from the 2021 MOFCOM Blocking Rules.
citizens and organisations may bring litigation in PRC people's courts seeking injunctive relief and compensation against parties enforcing improper foreign measures (the AFSL and the 2021 MOFCOM Blocking Rules already contained similar civil-recovery provisions; Order 835 codifies and systematises them).
these Regulations constitute a crime, criminal responsibility is to be pursued in accordance with law" — the first time a PRC State Council–level counter-sanctions instrument has explicitly referenced potential criminal liability for enforcement of foreign measures, escalating beyond the administrative penalties of the 2021 MOFCOM Blocking Rules and AFSL implementing provisions.
issue binding orders directing PRC organisations and individuals to refrain from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of foreign improper measures, with exemptions available "in special circumstances" via the Article 11 channel.
Order 835 was signed by Premier Li Qiang and published on 13 April 2026, taking effect upon publication. No foreign measures had been formally designated and no entities had been listed at the time of promulgation — the Malicious Entity List remains a forward-looking enforcement track.
Order 835 (extraterritorial-reach countermeasures) + Order 834 (supply-chain defensive umbrella, filed 2026-03-31) + AFSL implementation regulations (filed 2025-03-23) + the dual-use export-control regulations (filed 2024-10-19) now form a coherent and pre-authorised PRC response menu spanning defensive supply-chain protection, offensive counter-sanctions designations, export-control enforcement, and broader extraterritorial countermeasures.
outside counsel, banks executing OFAC/EU sanctions screening on PRC counterparties, compliance vendors, software and data-services providers facilitating foreign sanctions enforcement, and even foreign trade associations advocating for sanctions could in principle fall within Article 8. Practical breadth will depend on the State Council's first designations.
exemption channel partially relieves the AFSL conflict but forces a PRC government approval into every group-level sanctions-compliance decision, with exemption denial creating Malicious Entity List exposure.
Article 18 raises personal exposure for PRC and PRC-resident foreign personnel implementing foreign sanctions, materially increasing in-country compliance risk for finance, technology, legal-services and shipping firms.
threshold for PRC plaintiffs to recover damages from foreign-sanctioned counterparties' PRC subsidiaries or service providers, complementing the criminal track and giving Chinese SOEs a litigation route to recapture losses from sanctions-induced contract terminations.
the first formal identification of an "improper" foreign extraterritorial measure, and which Western sanctions regime is the most likely first target (US OFAC SDN designations against Chinese persons, EU restrictive measures against PRC individuals/entities, UK OFSI listings, or US Entity List additions)?
AFSL Counter-Sanctions List, the MOFCOM Unreliable Entity List, and the customs General Administration's blacklist — will the four lists converge or remain distinct enforcement tracks?
(case-by-case discretionary approvals) or via published general licences modelled on OFAC general-licence practice?
foreign-controlled PRC subsidiaries of banks, law firms, and compliance vendors that screen against OFAC/UK/EU lists in the ordinary course of business?
operationalised through a Supreme People's Court / Supreme People's Procuratorate judicial interpretation, and what thresholds (intent, damage, repeat conduct) will trigger prosecution?