Mingyue (Nico) Li

On May 11, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress and the State Council released their 2026 legislative plans, outlining lawmaking priorities for the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. This year, Beijing is moving to codify broad priorities, particularly in finance, economic security, market regulation, and technology governance.

For multinational companies operating stable supply chains, general licenses were initially viewed as a potential step toward greater predictability. Recent practice, however, suggests that while general licenses are now more commonly issued, they are also being implemented in a far more constrained and actively managed manner than their stated regulatory design might imply.

To date, references to rare earth elements (REE) general licenses have appeared in the White House readout, while MOFCOM has not made any public commitment. As a result, information on general licenses is fragmented, informal, and unevenly distributed. This article synthesizes trends from recent member benchmarking to piece together how the mechanism functions and who is best positioned to benefit.

With mandatory centralized traceability and monthly reporting requirements, the new rules grant regulators unprecedented oversight over supply flows and domestic profitability, with repercussions for global price stability.

Companies remain anxious over outstanding export approvals of dual-use items critical to their operations, even while approvals of items like rare earth magnets are picking up. At a recent closed-door meeting, USCBC learned that China’s Ministry of Commerce is exploring new procedures to ease delays.