BEIJING – Increasing pressure from major global powers offers the Chinese government more opportunities to demonstrate its new approach to international affairs.
In the first coordinated action of Western nations under US Presidency Joe Biden, the US, EU, UK and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials on Monday. Countries have cited human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region – allegations that Beijing has repeatedly denied.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded quickly with its own broad list of sanctions on EU entities and individuals. These people and their families will not be able to enter mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao, and associated companies and institutions will be barred from doing business with China, according to the ministry.
The level of detail about the consequences of these sanctions and those announced just when Biden was a juror is different from the more vague sanctions of the past, said Nick Turner, a Hong Kong law firm with Steptoe & Johnson. Coverage of its subject includes economic sanctions.
“It demonstrates the natural course of evolution for a major power,” Turner said. “We could only frame this in terms of reactions to the West, but … I think this is a natural course of development.”
China has become the second largest economy in the world in two decades. Its leader, President Xi Jinping, has abolished terms of office and pushed for greater internal control, while allowing for the development of a more aggressive diplomatic voice. In July, the foreign ministry also set up the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Research Center in Beijing.
And during an annual parliamentary meeting earlier this month, China announced it would advance foreign affairs legislation, including countermeasures for sanctions.
Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute for China and the United States, said that in retaliation for the latest sanctions, Beijing could announce similar restrictions on people in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“You will notice that, under Xi Jinping, it has become a signed diplomatic move that China will reflect and amplify everything it does in the face of sanctions,” Daly told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Tuesday.
– CNBC’s Yen Nee Lee contributed to this report.