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China

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On June 24, 2021, the White House announced that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., Ltd., a company located in Xinjiang, and its subsidiaries. This WRO is based on information reasonably indicating that Hoshine used forced labor to manufacture silica-based products. As a result, personnel at all U.S. ports of entry have been instructed to immediately begin detaining shipments…

On June 23, 2021, the Department of Labor published in the Federal Register a notice announcing public availability of an updated list of goods—along with countries of origin—that the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor in violation of international standards (the List). ILAB is required to develop and make available to the public the List pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act…

On June 15, 2021, the White House announced that the US and European Union (EU) have reached an agreement in the 16-year WTO Boeing-Airbus dispute and agreed to address shared challenges from China. The US and EU will suspend tariffs that were authorized by the WTO that are related to this dispute for five years and work together to challenge and counter China’s non-market practices in this sector in specific ways that reflect standards for fair competition. This includes collaboration on inward…

On June 9, 2021, the Biden Administration issued Executive Order 14034, “Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries” (“EO 14034”). EO 14034 revokes three executive orders issued by the Trump Administration that effectively banned certain Chinese connected software applications (“apps”) from operating in the United States. Although EO 14034 revokes these legal authorities and calls for their implementing rules to be rescinded, EO 14034 signals that the Biden Administration will continue to analyze the national security risks presented…

On June 3, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14032, “Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Certain Companies of the People’s Republic of China” (the “CMIC EO”). This amends and replaces Executive Order 13959 (EO 13959) and revokes Executive Order 13974 (EO 13974) that restricted investments in certain “Communist Chinese Military Companies” (CCMCs). The main changes implemented by the CMIC EO and related public guidance are to (1) change the group of targeted Chinese companies to focus on…

The scope of the two Open General Export Licences (OGEL) for security items has been further refined and amendments to the OGELs were on Wednesday (26 May 2021) published by the Department for International Trade in a Notice to Exporters. The updated OGELs permit the export of low risk information security items that rely on encryption technologies listed in Schedule 1 to each OGEL. The new Information Security OGELs cover a significantly wider range of items than the…

On May 18, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 1B, “Authorizing Transactions Involving Securities of Certain Communist Chinese Military Companies,” (“GL 1B”) in relation to OFAC’s Communist Chinese Military Companies (CCMCs) sanctions program as implemented pursuant to Executive Order 13959 (EO 13959) and amended by Executive Order 13974. Our blog posts on EO 13959 and OFAC’s prior guidance on the CCMC sanctions program are available here and here. As with the original…

On 16 May 2021, the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council (CTC) issued Circular [2021] No. 5 to extend the effective period for the second product exclusion list for the second batch of US products subject to Chinese retaliatory tariffs from 19 May 2021 to 25 December 2021. Click here to see the announcement. The exclusion list covers 79 products in total, including certain industrial chemicals, textiles, metals, electric…

China’s Export Control Law (“ECL”) came into effect on 1 December 2020, providing a framework to a series of separate administrative regulations on export controls issued prior to the law’s enactment. While no implementing rules or regulations under the ECL have been enacted since its passage into law, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) recently released Announcement No. 10 of 2021, on “Internal Compliance Guidelines on the Export of Dual-Use Items” (hereafter, the “Guidelines”) pursuant to Article…

On April 26, 2021, the US Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register a notice that makes a technical amendment to the exclusions that apply to certain products of China covered by the September 24, 2018 action (List or Tranche 3) that were exported from China before May 10, 2019, and entered the United States after May 10, 2019, and before June 15, 2019. The September action imposed additional 10% ad valorem duties on…