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The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to remove Hong Kong as a separate, preferentially treated destination, effective December 23, 2020. Hong Kong is reclassified from Computer Tier 1 to Tier 3 and now subject to the same licence requirements, licence exceptions, and end-use restrictions that apply to mainland China. The rule implements Section 3 of Executive Order 13936 (July 14, 2020, "Hong Kong Normalization"), itself a response to China's imposition of the National Security Law on Hong Kong on June 30, 2020.

The Bureau of Industry and Security added 77 entities (under 78 entries) to the Entity List via a December 22, 2020 final rule (FR Doc 2020-28031). The headline designation is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) — China's largest contract chipmaker — for activities related to military-civil fusion (MCF), with a presumption of denial applied to all items uniquely required to produce chips at advanced nodes of 10 nanometers or below. The batch also covers entities that supported PRC militarisation of artificial islands in the South China Sea and entities implicated in human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a correcting amendment to its September 11, 2020 Final Rule implementing Wassenaar Arrangement 2018 Plenary decisions, which had inadvertently introduced errors into six Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs) on the Commerce Control List (CCL). The correction revises memory-technology terminology in ECCN 3A001 from enumerated chip types (EEPROMs, flash, MRAMs) to the consolidated term "non-volatile memories" (with an added Technical Note), and removes a redundant "Mega Samples Per Second" label from ECCN 3A002 subparagraphs. Errors in ECCNs 3A991, 5A002, 7A005, and 9E003 are also rectified. No new export controls are introduced; the correction restores the policy intent of the parent rule and resolves ambiguities that could affect classification determinations.

The Export Control Law of the People's Republic of China was adopted by the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress on 17 October 2020 (Presidential Order No. 58) and entered into force on 1 December 2020. Comprising 5 chapters and 49 articles, it establishes the unified statutory framework governing China's export-control regime over dual-use items, military items, nuclear items, and other goods, technologies, services, and data whose export could affect national security or China's non-proliferation obligations. The law introduces comprehensive licensing requirements, end-user and end-use certification, deemed-export and re-export controls with extraterritorial reach, a Controlled Entities List (CEL) with matching-entity restrictions, and substantial criminal and administrative penalties — and it is the parent statutory authority under which every China export-control implementing instrument in the IPTM register operates.

BIS published an interim final rule on 5 October 2020 implementing multilateral export controls on six emerging technology categories agreed at the December 2019 Wassenaar Arrangement Plenary meeting, revising Commerce Control List ECCNs 2B001, 3D003, 3E004, 5A004, 5D001, and 9A004. The six technologies are: hybrid additive-manufacturing/CNC machine tools; computational lithography software for extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) mask fabrication; wafer-finishing technology for 5 nm-node production; digital forensics tools that circumvent device authentication to extract raw data; software for monitoring and analysis of communications acquired from a handover interface; and sub-orbital craft. As the first of two US implementing actions for the 2019 Wassenaar Plenary, this rule elevated nascent commercial technologies into permanent CCL classifications enforceable against all non-EAR99 destinations.

MOFCOM Order No. 4 of 2020, issued and effective 19 September 2020, establishes the Unreliable Entity List (UEL / 不可靠实体清单) regime — China's primary countermeasure framework for designating foreign companies, organisations, and individuals that are deemed to endanger Chinese national sovereignty, security, or development interests, or that apply discriminatory measures against Chinese entities in violation of normal market principles. The UEL inter-ministerial Working Mechanism, administered through MOFCOM, may impose restrictions or prohibitions on the designated entity's China-related import/export activities, investment in China, and entry or stay of senior personnel in China, as well as fines. Promulgated under the Foreign Trade Law of the PRC and the National Security Law of the PRC, the Provisions serve as the statutory parent for every UEL designation announcement since 2023, and operate as the structural peer of the US BIS Entity List / OFAC SDN architecture and the simultaneously promulgated Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law framework.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a final rule on September 11, 2020 amending the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and Commerce Control List (CCL) to implement the remaining decisions adopted at the Wassenaar Arrangement December 2018 Plenary meeting, covering 28 ECCNs revised across Categories 1–3 and 5–9 and one new ECCN (6B002) added. The rule harmonises US dual-use export controls with the 41 other WA participating states, tightening or clarifying controls on semiconductors, sensors/lasers, navigation/avionics, marine equipment, aerospace propulsion, and information-security items. An earlier May 2019 rule had already implemented five emerging-technology decisions from the same 2018 Plenary; this rule covers the residual set of decisions not addressed at that time.

Effective 17 August 2020 (published in the Federal Register 20 August 2020, Vol. 85 No. 162, FR Doc 2020-18213), BIS implemented three simultaneous measures targeting Huawei's global supply chain. First, 38 non-U.S. affiliates of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. were added to the Entity List with the most restrictive license review policy (presumption of denial) and designated under footnote 1, extending the Huawei-specific Foreign-Produced Direct Product Rule (FDPR) to their operations. Second, the Temporary General License (TGL), which since May 2019 had authorized limited ongoing transactions with Huawei (network maintenance, software updates, standards participation), was allowed to expire on 13 August 2020 and replaced with a narrower authorization. Third, BIS expanded the scope of the Huawei FDPR (General Prohibition Three) to cover foreign-produced items when a footnote 1 entity is a party to any transaction or when the item will be used in the production or development of products for any footnote 1 entity, closing the design-house loophole that had allowed TSMC to supply HiSilicon/Kirin chips as long as Huawei was not the direct importer.

The Investitionskontrollgesetz (InvKG, "Investment Control Act") is Austria's horizontal, statutory FDI screening regime. Published as Article 1 of the Federal Law BGBl. I Nr. 87/2020 on 24 July 2020 and entering into force on 25 July 2020, the Act replaced the previous narrow §§25a–25e Außenwirtschaftsgesetz 2011 (Foreign Trade Act) regime — under which fewer than 10 permits were issued from 2013 to mid-2020 — and transposes EU Regulation 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union. The InvKG introduces mandatory ex-ante notification and approval of non-EU / non-EEA / non-Swiss acquisitions where the acquirer crosses any of the 10% / 25% / 50% voting-rights thresholds in an Austrian target operating in the critical sectors listed in Annex Part 1 (especially sensitive: defence, energy / water / telecoms critical infrastructure, dual-use technology, cybersecurity, AI, quantum technology, robotics, semiconductors, biotech, health, vaccines) and 25% / 50% in the sectors listed in Annex Part 2 (broader, including media, food-security, electronic communications infrastructure, financial infrastructure). Administered by the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Wirtschaft (BMAW), with case decisions taken in coordination with the Komitee für Investitionskontrolle (inter-ministerial Investment Control Committee) and, where the case is escalated to the EU cooperation mechanism, the Commission and EU peer Member States. The InvKG is Austria's functional peer of US CFIUS / FIRRMA, UK NSI Act 2021, Germany AWG §§55–62, France Décret 2014-479 / R. 151-1 et seq., Italy Golden Power Decree, Netherlands Wet Vifo, Denmark investeringsscreeningsloven, and Belgium ISC. Sunset clause: originally limited to 30 June 2022 under §17(2) InvKG; permanently extended by BGBl. I Nr. 80/2022 of 14 July 2022.