Blacklist

China placed seven European entities on its export control list over their involvement in arms sales to Taiwan. It is the first time Beijing has used this tool against EU companies. The decision, effective Friday 24 April, prohibits Chinese exporters from supplying dual-use goods, technologies or services to the sanctioned firms. It also bars third parties from re-exporting Chinese-origin goods to the same entities.

The seven include Germany's Hensoldt, a defence electronics manufacturer that delivered two units of its TRML air defence radar to Taiwan, Belgium's FN Herstal and its parent FN Browning Group, and four Czech aerospace firms, among them VZLU Aerospace. China's Commerce Ministry said the measure aims to "safeguard national security and interests" and fulfil international non-proliferation obligations.

The timing matters. The decision came one day after the EU approved its twentieth sanctions package against Russia, which targeted 27 Chinese and Hong Kong entities accused of supplying dual-use goods to Russia's military-industrial complex. The sequence looks like symmetrical retaliation: Brussels sanctions Chinese firms for helping Russia, Beijing sanctions European firms for helping Taiwan. Eye for eye, list for list.

The Commerce Ministry insisted the measure is "highly targeted" and does not affect normal economic exchanges between China and the EU. That same day, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with the heads of Mercedes-Benz and the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, presumably to deliver precisely that message. But the gesture does not disguise the direction: export controls are becoming the default geopolitical instrument, in Brussels and in Beijing alike.

For the affected firms, the immediate impact depends on how much they rely on Chinese dual-use components. For Europe more broadly, the signal matters more than the damage: China has just shown it has its own list and is willing to deploy it against the bloc, not only against the United States or Japan. The wider context is China's new supply chain security law, approved on 7 April, which elevates industrial supply chain protection to a national security matter and penalises foreign entities that attempt to interfere with Chinese logistical arrangements. The rules of the game have changed. Both sides changed them.