Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 37 entities under 40 entries to the Entity List, effective December 17, 2021. The additions span three distinct threat rationales: (1) support for Chinese military modernization across semiconductors, submarine cables, armored vehicles, and defense electronics; (2) the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 affiliated institutes pursuing biotechnology processes for military end uses, including purported brain-control weaponry under EAR §744.11(b); and (3) a cross-border Iran sanctions-evasion network operating across China, Georgia, Malaysia, and Turkey that diverted US-origin items to Iran's defense industries and advanced conventional weapons programs. All 40 entries carry a presumption-of-denial licensing policy for all items subject to the EAR, with no license exceptions available.

Regulation (EU) 2021/821, adopted 20 May 2021 and applied from 9 September 2021, establishes the Union regime for controlling exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit, and transfer of dual-use items, repealing Regulation (EC) No 428/2009. Annex I lists controlled items implementing internationally agreed dual-use controls under the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, NSG, and Chemical Weapons Convention. The regulation introduces a new catch-all control on cyber-surveillance technologies that could facilitate human-rights violations (Art. 5 and Annex IV), and strengthens cooperation between Member States and the European Commission, placing specific obligations on exporters. It serves as the statutory anchor for all EU export licences, every multilateral-regime transposition into EU law, and coordination mechanisms with US BIS, UK ECJU, JP METI, and KR MOTIE export-control regimes.