Unlike in Western countries, Chinese sanctions are not typically imposed through clear legal or administrative orders. Instead, they are often announced via statements by relevant government agencies, serving to create a sense of threat or coercion. For this reason, scholars frequently describe Chinese sanctions as "informal sanctions". A notable example is the dispute between China and South Korea over the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in 2016. In response, Chinese authorities ordered the suspension of 74 Lotte supermarkets for fire safety violations and informally blacklisted several South Korean companies, effectively halting commercial interactions. These measures lacked formal legal basis but had tangible punitive effects. This ambiguity allows the Chinese government greater policy flexibility. However, the pattern began to shift following the U.S.–China trade war, as China introduced a series of legal instruments—such as the Unreliable Entity List and the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law—to formalize and legitimize its use of sanctions. Despite these developments, many sanctions continue to be issued through diplomatic statements without formal legal codification. In September 2020, the Ministry of Commerce issued new rules allowing for the creation of the
Unreliable Entity List, and the
National People's Congress followed up soon after in June 2021 by promulgating the
Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, which established a legal framework for maintaining previous sanctions. The law also allowed Chinese ministries, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taiwan Affairs Office, to implement new blocking sanctions against foreign individuals and entities. The Taiwan Affairs Office announced a sanction under the new law in November 2021, and the Ministry of Commerce announced its first Unreliable Entity List designation in February 2023. == Focus on specific issues ==