President Trump will meet Chairman Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14–15. Xi Jinping has all the high cards, and he knows it. China made sure President Trump knows it, too.
On May 2, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) issued Announcement No. 21. The operative language is built on three unambiguous negatives that govern how Chinese parties must treat U.S. sanctions: “shall not recognize,” “shall not enforce,” and “shall not comply with.” Every Chinese citizen, company, and organization is directed to apply those three prohibitions to Trump’s Executive Order 13902 of January 10, 2020, and Executive Order 13846 of August 6, 2018, which sanction any individual or firm that trades with the Iranian regime. Invoking those orders, the U.S. Treasury on April 24 of this year designated five Chinese refiners for buying Iranian crude — Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) and four smaller producers in Shandong and Hebei. With Announcement No. 21, Beijing has declared those sanctions unenforceable on Chinese soil.
