WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 China likes to condemn the United States for extending its arm too far outside of its borders to make demands on non-American companies. But when it sought to hit back at the U.S. interests this month, Beijing did exactly the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In expanding export rules on rare earths, Beijing for the first time announced it will require foreign firms to obtain approval<\/a> from the Chinese government to export magnets containing even tiny amounts of China-originated rare earth materials or produced with Chinese technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means a South Korean smartphone maker must ask for Beijing\u2019s permission to sell the devices to Australia if the phones contain China-originated rare earth materials, said Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. \u201cThis rule gives China control over basically the entire global economy in the technology supply chain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For anyone familiar with U.S. trade practice, China is simply borrowing a decades-long U.S. policy: the foreign direct product rule. It extends the reach of U.S. law to foreign-made products, and it has been used regularly to restrict China\u2019s access to certain U.S. technologies made outside of the United States, even when they are in the hands of foreign companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the latest example of Beijing turning to U.S. precedents for tools it needs to stare down Washington in what appears to be an\u00a0extended trade war<\/a>\u00a0between the world\u2019s two largest economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cChina is learning from the best,\u201d said Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at Asia Society Policy Institute\u2019s Center for China Analysis. \u201cBeijing is copying Washington\u2019s playbook because it saw firsthand how effectively U.S. export controls could constrain its own economic development and political choices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added: \u201cGame recognizes game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was in 2018, when President Donald Trump<\/a> launched a trade war with China, that Beijing felt the urgency to adopt a set of laws and policies that it could readily deploy when new trade conflicts arise. And it looked to Washington for ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its Unreliable Entity List, established in 2020 by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, resembles the U.S. Commerce Department\u2019s \u201centity list\u201d that restricts certain foreign companies from doing businesses with the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, Beijing adopted the anti-foreign sanction law, allowing agencies such as the Chinese Foreign Ministry to deny visas and freeze the assets of unwelcome individuals and businesses \u2014 similar to what the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Treasury can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calling it a toolkit against foreign sanctions, intervention and long-arm jurisdiction, the state-run news agency China News in a 2021 news report cited an ancient Chinese teaching, saying Beijing would be \u201chitting back with the enemy\u2019s methods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The law \u201chas combed through relevant foreign legislation and taken into consideration the international law and the basic principles of international relations,\u201d said the Chinese scholar Li Qingming as quoted in the news report. He also said it could deter the other side from escalating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other formal measures Beijing has adopted in the past several years include expanded export controls and foreign investment review tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeremy Daum, a senior research scholar in law and senior fellow at Yale Law School\u2019s Paul Tsai China Center, said Beijing often draws from foreign models in developing its laws in non-trade, non foreign-related areas. As China seeks capabilities to retaliate in kind in trade and sanctions, the tools are often \u201cvery parallel\u201d to those of the U.S., he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both governments also have adopted a \u201cholistic view of national security,\u201d which expands the concept to justify restrictions on each other, Daum said.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Trump launched his trade war with China shortly after he returned to the White House earlier this year, Beijing readily deployed its new tools in addition to raising tariffs to match those imposed by the U.S. president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February, in response to Trump\u2019s first 10% tariff on China over allegations that Beijing failed to curb the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl, the Chinese Commerce Ministry put PVH Group<\/a>, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and the biotechnology company Illumina, on the unreliable entity list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That barred them from engaging in China-related import or export activities and from making new investments in the country. Beijing also announced export controls on tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium, which are elements critical to the production of modern high-tech products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, when Trump imposed the second 10%, fentanyl-related tariff, Beijing placed 10 more U.S. firms<\/a> on its unreliable entity list and added 15 U.S. companies to its export control list, including aerospace and defense companies like General Dynamics Land Systems and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, among others, asserting that they \u201cendanger China\u2019s national security and interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe idea goes back to at least 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Things accelerated this year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n