,

Summitry and Lawfare: China's Foreign-related Rule of Law

,

By Katherine Wilhelm

Few people outside of China’s legal elites have heard of the “foreign-related rule of law” policy. Yet this awkwardly named policy was a big reason that Chinese President Xi Jinping was able to stage his recent summit with US President Donald Trump in a posture of apparent parity. 

China’s response to Trump’s 2025 “independence day” tariffs had been the most vehement of the United States’ leading trade partners, beginning with a barrage of tit-for-tat tariffs. It briefly looked like a replay of the Trump-Xi trade war of 2018-2019, which ended with mutually elevated tariffs and a bulk purchase agreement that later fell apart. But 2025 was different. This time Xi unsheathed a powerful new response: a new critical minerals export control regime.  

As everyone now knows, China is the world’s leading source of minerals that are essential to semiconductors, advanced electronics, and military hardware. Thanks to the new export controls, the air quickly went out of the US-China tariff war. So much so that at the May 14-15 summit, still-contentious trade and technology issues were shuffled off to a new board of trade to work on out sight, while Xi and Trump focused on other priorities, respectively Taiwan and pageantry.  

What changed between 2019 and 2025 was China’s introduction of its foreign-related rule of law policy, or FRROL.

What changed between 2019 and 2025 was China’s introduction of its foreign-related rule of law policy, or FRROL, which directed legal experts and lawmakers to improve and expand the roster of laws that govern every aspect of China’s relations with the world. Trade and foreign sanctions were obvious places to start. China passed an Export Control Law in 2020 and dual-use items export control regulations in 2024; it also revised the Foreign Trade Law (2022) and Mineral Resources Law (2024). Together, these laws gave the central government much greater control over domestic critical minerals production and sale, allowing it to flexibly reduce or redirect exports in response to strategic needs. In addition to a tariff hammer, China now had an export control scalpel, and wielded it to achieve a tariff truce.   

Law did not traditionally play much of a role in China’s foreign relations. Although the Constitution gives the function of managing foreign relations to the top executive-branch organ, the State Council, in recent practice the foreign portfolio has been controlled by the Communist Party general secretary--currently Xi. With or without an export control law, Xi always had the power to cut off critical mineral exports to other countries.  

But Xi has long recognized the unique value of law as a tool of governance in the domestic context. Law facilitates coordination in complex matters, creates predictability, and lends credibility to threats. Xi began talking about “foreign-related law” or shewai fa in 2019 and 2020 as a tool to safeguard national interests. He did not need to set up an “FRROL office” or provide detailed instructions for operationalizing FRROL. Not only party members but legal elites heard the call to action and responded.  

Law facilitates coordination in complex matters, creates predictability, and lends credibility to threats.

At two workshops organized by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute and NYU Shanghai in 2025, participants analyzed a wide array of legislative and judicial actions that have flowed from the FRROL policy. A partial list includes:  

  •  The Supreme People’s Court has built a network of sixteen international commercial tribunals (国际商事法庭) across the country staffed with judges who have expertise in cross-border disputes.  It also has expanded its network of maritime courts and their jurisdiction. The aim is to settle more transnational disputes at home. The court also has famously begun issuing anti-suit injunctions and anti-anti-suit injunctions in cross-border IP licensing disputes, and increased its production of materials to guide lower courts in how to adjudicate complex transnational matters.

  • In addition to the laws already mentioned, the National People’s Congress has approved a Data Security Law (2021), Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (2021), Land Boundary Law (2021), Foreign Relations Law (2023), Foreign State Immunity Law (2023), revised Civil Procedure Law provisions expanding the jurisdiction of domestic courts over foreign parties (2023), and revised Maritime Law (2025).  

  • Finally, with encouragement and funding from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Justice, more than fifty universities have established new curricula, research centers, or even special schools within the university to study foreign-related law and train young lawyers to promote China’s interests at international fora and tribunals. Offerings include public and private international law, international arbitration, translation and legal writing skills, prestigious international internships, moot courts, and more.  

The overall speed and scale of response across the system – a now-typical reflexive reaction in Xi’s one-party world of “top-level design” – may mask some poor legislative drafting and seems almost certain to produce an oversupply of international law expertise. But the initiative does not need to be flawless to be effective. As Xi and other senior decisionmakers grapple with almost any foreign state or private sector action that affects China’s interests, whether economic, political, or military, they now have far more pre-considered responses at hand. One reason we hear less these days from China’s wolf warrior diplomats may be that they have options beyond rhetoric.   

FRROL has little to do with “rule of law” in the classic meaning of law constraining power. FRROL is clearly an exercise in lawfare.

Of course, FRROL has little to do with “rule of law” in the classic meaning of law constraining power. FRROL is clearly an exercise in lawfare, in which the law becomes a field of contestation similar to information warfare and economic warfare. China selectively borrows directly from the US playbook, for example, by creating name lists of companies and even individual political leaders to be hit with sanctions, and by enlisting the non-state sector to help enforce sanctions. This mimicry may make it difficult for the US -- which talks less and less about international law anyway -- to criticize China’s actions as illegal. But it is equally difficult for China to argue that mimicking the US makes its actions legal under international law as it was widely understood in the not-too-distant past.  

Finally, FRROL is not a foreign policy magic bullet. China may still overshoot or underachieve when retaliating against the United States or other opponents in the race for economic and technological superiority. What FRROL has done is put international law and relations under the spotlight at home, bring new resources and energy to the field, and produced a new set of flexible foreign policy tools that, at least for the moment, seem to be having the desired effect.  

The FRROL initiative illustrates the Chinese system’s proclivity for long-term planning and preparation, in sharp contrast to the style of many Western governments and especially the current US administration. In a world that devalues genuine rule of law, planning and predictability can score high marks.  

***

Katherine Wilhelm is executive director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute and an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law.

Suggested Citation:
Katherine Wilhelm, “Summitry and Lawfare: China’s Foreign-related Rule of Law,” USALI Perspectives, 6, No. 9, May 30, 2026, https://usali.org/usali-perspectives-blog/summitry-and-lawfare-chinas-foreign-related-rule-of-law.

The views expressed in USALI Perspectives are those of the authors, and do not represent those of USALI or NYU.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.