Global Trade & Foreign Policy Insights

Over the past two years, trade relations between the United States and China have been significantly affected by political, social, and economic shifts in both countries.

On August 7, 2020, the United States Department of the Treasury imposed new sanctions on eleven officials said to be “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and restricting the freedom of expression or assembly of the citizens of Hong Kong.” The new additions to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list come just a month after Beijing passed a national security law that implemented new national security measures, gave Beijing significantly more influence in Hong Kong, and the U.S government says severely restricted the autonomy and independence of Hong Kong.

Over the past year, the U.S. government has tightened export control restrictions on technology entities in China, most particularly phone and 5G infrastructure manufacturer Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (Huawei). We have written about Huawei’s addition to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List in previous briefings. In short, due to these designations any business or individual exporting, reexporting, or transferring goods and technology subject to BIS jurisdiction to Huawei requires a license from BIS.

The Bank of England (the BoE) recently issued a Discussion Paper on opportunities, challenges, and design of central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Paper seeks comments and information from the public.