China has passed a new foreign relations law that deepens President Xi Jinping’s control over the country’s external relations and strengthens the government’s legal basis for “countermeasures” against western threats to national and economic security.
The official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday that the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, had approved the law. The legislation is likely to provide firmer legal backing for Beijing to respond to western measures such as sanctions and export controls but could undermine efforts to attract overseas investment.
The nationalist Global Times tabloid said the law, which takes effect on Saturday, would provide a “legal basis for the diplomatic struggle against sanctions” as well as sound a “warning and deterrence against western hegemony”.