A comparative study of blocking laws between China and EU

Abstract

In recent years, the United States has frequently imposed sub-economic sanctions on other countries, which has seriously disrupted the regular order of the world economic and trade market. Since the Trump administration took office, China has gradually become the target of the United States, and the economic and trade friction between China and the United States has been constant. To counter the long-arm jurisdiction of the United States, China's Ministry of Commerce issued the Blocking Measures with Chinese characteristics on January 9, 2021. Its legislative model draws lessons from the European Union Blocking Law and adopts the combination of public enforcement mechanisms and private law relief mechanisms. As the legislative experience of China's blocking law is a little insufficient, the construction of the blocking law system still needs to be improved. Therefore, this paper selects the currently mature EU blocking law as the reference object, aiming to further enhance the system of China's blocking law by drawing on its legislative practice experience. This paper sorts out the legislative process of EU blocking law and analyzes its three major defects: weak enforcement, no clear criteria for violating the obligation of "prohibition of compliance" and insufficient punishment. Then, by combing the legislative process of China's blocking law, comparing and analyzing the institutional differences between China and Europe, and referring to the defects of the EU blocking law system, it summarizes the shortcomings of China's blocking law in four aspects: legal effect, the scope of application, exemption system and punishment measures, and takes them as China's blocking measures.