China urges US to cease unilateral sanctions

Chinese Foreign Ministry has urged the United States to stop abusing “long-arm jurisdiction” and unilateral sanctions which have distorted multilateralism and weakened international trade.

“The US’ long-arm jurisdiction is an arbitrary judicial practice, wielded by the US government on the strength of its national power and financial hegemony, to enforce extraterritorial jurisdiction over entities and individuals of other countries on the ground of its domestic law,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said at a news conference.

She made the remarks in response to a reported secret deal the United States struck with Japan and the Netherlands to increase restrictions on the exports of some advanced chip-making tools to China, including advanced lithography tools.

News reports last month indicated that the agreement would extend some of the export controls the United States adopted in October to companies based in the two allied countries, including ASML Holding NV, Nikon Corp, and Tokyo Electron Ltd.

Mao said that in order to maintain its leading position in economics, science, and technology, the United States has disrupted normal trade and industrial chains and global supply by overdeveloping the concept of national security and abusing export controls.

The spokesman went on to say that “successive US governments have resorted to economic coercion, and made imposing sanctions their first choice when it comes to solving diplomatic issues.”

According to Mao, more than 9,400 US sanctions were in effect by the end of the 2021 fiscal year, and Washington has exercised long-term jurisdiction over a number of countries, including China, Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

“Not only have they failed to achieve desired effects, but these sanctions have caused humanitarian disasters,” she said.

Mao went on to say that in recent years, the United States has lowered the threshold for using long-term jurisdiction while strengthening sanctions to an unprecedented degree and expanding them to include more targets.

Such behavior “has undermined the principle of sovereign equality and the multilateral international order centered on the United Nations, distorted normal international trade, and greatly damaged the interests of companies in various countries”, the spokeswoman said.