No details were released of the regulation that was approved last week by the State Council to control exports of dual-use goods, but the commerce ministry issued a draft of the rules for public feedback in April 2022.
According to the draft regulation, there was a need to refine the 2020 Export Control Law and set up a unified rule to address “fragmented and imperfect” regulations on exports of nuclear technology, missiles, biotech and chemicals.
Lu Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the State Council had passed the regulation “just in time” as sectors that previously were not considered dual-use have been shown to have military applications.
These included new communication and remote control technologies, as well as key raw materials, Lu said. He also pointed to last week’s pager and walkie talkie explosions in Lebanon as an example of the weaponisation of civilian-use products.
