Introduction

In recent years, the US government has grown increasingly concerned by China's official policy of military-civil fusion (MCF), and multiple national security agencies have sounded the alarm bell. The Defence Department referred to MCF in the 2018 National Defence Strategy, concluding that China and Russia have been "deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals".

At the end of April 2020, the Commerce Department got into the game, taking significant steps to revise the Export Administration Regulations (EARs) to address MCF. Specifically, on 28 April 2020 the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued two final rules and one proposed rule. The two final rules will be effective 29 June 2020, and comments on the proposed rule are due by the same date.

Details on each rule can be found below.

BIS to remove licence exception CIVs from EARs

This rule eliminates licence exception civil end users (CIVs) that previously authorised certain exports to China, Russia and other countries for civil end use.(1)

BIS may make changes to restrict re-exports

A second proposed rule would eliminate a provision of the licence exception additional permissive re-exports that currently authorises certain re-exports to China and other countries if local export authorisation requirements are met.(2)

Military end-use/user controls and reporting

The third rule sets out the most significant changes to the EARs by expanding military end-use and end-user controls applicable to China, Russia and Venezuela.(3)

Endnotes

(1) Further analysis is available here.

(2) Further analysis is available here.

(3) Further analysis is available here.