Paper: Exporting Control - China’s New Strategic Toolkit

On 14 April 2026, the European Chamber published Exporting Control: China’s New Strategic Toolkit, which details how China’'s export control regime has developed into a powerful means of controlling the global availability of strategic goods.

On 14 April 2026, the European Chamber published Exporting Control: China’s New Strategic Toolkit, which details how China’'s export control regime has developed into a powerful means of controlling the global availability of strategic goods.

"Amid an increasingly turbulent global environment, China is well placed to leverage its strengths and demonstrate to its key trading partners, like the EU, that it can be relied upon as a sourcing destination for critical goods", said Jens Eskelund, president of the European Chamber. "However, the country's expanding export control regime threatens this, we believe unnecessarily. Implementing export controls in a targeted and precise way that prevents the trade of dual-use goods for military uses, while ensuring that legitimate civilian trade is not disrupted, would contribute to more mutually beneficial outcomes."

While export controls remain an important tool for preventing the proliferation of weapons, they have increasingly been repurposed as strategic trade measures, first by the United States (US) and now China. The EU must now respond to this challenge to ensure its economic security.

Throughout 2025, the US-China trade war saw both sides increase their use of export controls, in tandem with tit-for-tat tariffs. European companies were caught in the crossfire, in particular by China's imposition of export controls on rare earth elements (REEs), which led to significant supply chain disruptions and lost revenue for European companies. While the export control licensing process - which can take several months to complete - has seen marginal improvements over last year, many companies remain in a perpetual state of uncertainty.

Paper download here ...