The PRC’s Extraterritorial Legal Architecture: Long-arm Jurisdiction as an Instrument of Transnational Repression and Statecraft
Executive Summary
This report was prepared by the China Strategic Risks Institute as part of its ongoing research on the intersection of law, governance, and the rise of authoritarianism. It examines how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has built an interlocking legal framework that extends its jurisdictional reach beyond its borders. By embedding national security imperatives across a wide spectrum of legislation with extraterritorial effect – from intelligence and data to trade and sanctions – Beijing has institutionalised a form of transnational control that challenges the exercise of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens and lawful residents in democratic countries. This paper aims to assist policymakers, legal experts, businesses and civil society organisations in understanding the structure, intent, and global implications of the PRC’s extraterritorial legal strategy on transnational repression and economic statecraft.
For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the ability to set and enforce laws with ramifications beyond the PRC’s borders is a key part of its “international struggle” with the US and other democratic countries. Part One of this paper sets out how Chairman Xi Jinping has personally endorsed efforts to develop the PRC’s ability to strengthen its extraterritorial legal toolkit. This is seen as both a counter-response to any future legal measures taken by democratic countries against the PRC, and as a means to proactively assert its own national security interests. Part One also provides an overview of aspects of the PRC’s long-arm jurisdiction that have already been extensively documented. This includes Beijing’s considerable success in ‘returning’ wanted individuals to the PRC, both through extradition processes and more covert means. The PRC’s attempts to use Interpol Red Notices to detain and extradite wanted individuals, have also been well documented.
The remainder of this paper focuses on two developments that are rapidly expanding the PRC’s long arm jurisdiction, but have so far been largely ignored by policymakers and analysts outside the PRC.
The first is the PRC’s ability to exploit the principle of ‘judicial comity’ – especially in common law jurisdictions – to enforce its domestic judgements abroad, as analysed in Part Two of this paper. The principle of judicial comity is predicated on the legal maxim that courts of one jurisdiction will give effect to the laws and judicial decisions of another, not as a matter of obligation, but out of mutual respect and deference. Courts in the US, UK and other countries have historically applied these principles to enforce judgments made in Chinese courts, unless on the narrow exemption that such an enforcement would be “against public policy”. The lack of independence and due process in the PRC’s courts, as well as declining judicial independence in Hong Kong, means that this principle is at high risk of being exploited by the CCP for its own purposes. This report examines one in-depth case study in which the PRC’s use of the principle of judicial comity is aiding its efforts to take repressive financial measures against a Hui Muslim in exile in the US.
The second area examined is the growing number of Chinese laws claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction or having extra-territorial effects, as analysed in Part Three of this paper. While the extra-territorial claims of high profile and explicitly political laws, such as Hong Kong’s National Security Law, have grabbed headlines, a far greater number of PRC laws have been quietly bolstering its extraterritorial legal toolkit. These laws span a broad range of sectors, but cohere around the concept of defending a broad conception of national security. This report sets out five groups of laws which have extraterritorial effects and/or are used by the PRC authorities as means of transnational repression and statecraft:
National Security and Intelligence laws
Data Surveillance and Cybersecurity laws
Espionage and Political Control laws
Military and Defence laws
Economics, Sanctions and Export Control laws
Together, these represent a decisive evolution in the use of law as an instrument of power, allowing the PRC to punish, deter and control those who are perceived as acting against its interests globally. Beyond the borders of the PRC, these laws allow for Beijing to take control of personal data, communications data and financial assets when such measures are considered to be in the PRC’s national security interests. They provide the legal backing for PRC agents to undertake surveillance, harassment and punish dissidents and exiles abroad. Individuals, businesses, financial institutions, critical infrastructure providers and even states can be the target of legal action under these laws. By embedding the principles of national security and state control across its legal system, the PRC has turned ordinary regulatory instruments into tools of transnational influence. Since these laws are now set out clearly in the PRC’s statute books, governments and organisations cannot ignore their stated effects. A rigorous legal and political analysis is needed to understand the practical effects of these laws on an international level.
For democracies, the challenge is twofold: first, to protect citizens and institutions from coercive applications of Chinese law; second, to preserve the integrity of international legal cooperation. Unchecked, the PRC’s extraterritorial legal assertions could normalise authoritarian jurisdictional practices worldwide and damage the existing international legal system
To achieve this, this paper concludes with a series for international policymakers as they seek to navigate this increasingly complex legal environment. Democracies must adopt stronger domestic legal safeguards that empower courts and prosecutors to scrutinise requests from authoritarian regimes through a human rights lens, and to apply principles such as judicial comity in light of contemporary geopolitical realities rather than on a purely country-agnostic basis. We also call for deeper multilateral coordination among democratic states to improve transparency, share intelligence, and jointly resist the misuse of international legal and law-enforcement mechanisms for politically motivated ends
Looking ahead, the PRC’s long arm jurisdiction is likely to deepen. New laws governing artificial intelligence, biotechnology, outer space and finance will incorporate similar security clauses extending jurisdiction abroad. The PRC will continue to promote its ‘data sovereignty’ narrative through the Belt and Road Initiative’s Digital Silk Road, encouraging partner states to adopt aligned legal frameworks. This process may fragment the global legal order into competing systems of digital and security governance – one open and pluralistic, the other centralised and coercive. Democracies should take active leadership in setting laws and regulations to lead in the multipolar world.