Last August, China’s State Council released Document No. 11, also called the 24 Measures, which outlines measures to attract and utilize foreign investment in China. Several of the measures speak to long-held concerns of the US business community, including cross-border data transfer, government procurement, and intellectual property (IP) theft.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has set a goal of passing a comprehensive China bill by year's end. Select Committee on the CCP Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI), has said the same, and it remains to see whether either will be able to rally enough support in their respective Houses.
Thank you to all who partnered on and joined our Jubilee Gala in Washington last week, as well as those who were a part of our 50th anniversary galas in Beijing and Shanghai earlier this year. I was honored to be in the company of so many members, USCBC alum, friends, China scholars, and officials from both the United States and China.
China’s former defense minister Li Shangfu and former foreign minister Qin Gang were removed from their positions as state councilors. New heads of the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology were appointed in October. Fewer personnel adjustments happened at the local level in the second half of 2023 compared to the first, as there was significant reshuffling after local two sessions meetings in January.
Some of the more contentious provisions, such as language to further regulate US outbound investment and to prohibit US commissaries and military exchanges from selling products made in China, were dropped from the final bill. USCBC expects President Biden to sign the NDAA into law before the end of the year.
The United States seeks to deter investment in China in the name of supply chain resilience, while the Chinese government—pursuing growth—is attempting to attract and retain foreign investment into China.
In the last year, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) adjusted its rules for cross-border data transfers (CBDT) in what appears to be a slowly loosening government approach to managing data flows.
A four-hour meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of this year’s APEC summit in San Francisco served as a pivotal juncture in thawing relations between the United States and China. The meeting laid the groundwork for expanding communication across multiple levels of government, but it remains to be seen what this will look like in practice and how it will impact US-China commercial relations.
US-China bilateral trade in goods increased 6.8 percent over the previous quarter during Q3 2023, the first quarterly increase since bilateral trade first dived in Q4 2022.