2026-09-02
6 分钟The Economist.
Hi, I'm Sarah Wu, co-host of Drum Tower, our podcast about China.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've handpicked an article for you from the latest edition of The Economist.
We hope you enjoy listening.
For decades, America has sought to impose its will on companies
doing business around the world using a long, powerful extraterritorial arm.
Indeed, that is the basis of its new economic war against Iran launched this week.
These days, however, international companies also have to worry about another long arm.
This one belongs to China.
Under President Xi Jinping, the world's second biggest economy is fast learning from the biggest.
One of its goals is to hit back against American pressure.
But China is also mustering its weapons in order to extend its own influence.
Just as the threat of excluding others from the global financial system is America's superpower,
so China has its own, its world-beating supply chains.
Companies face a new reality of potentially being caught between two hands.
Laws written this decade and beefed up in April give the Chinese
state the power to punish firms for complying with foreign sanctions.
If companies cannot obey both America and China at the same time, they will be in a bind.
Two big American banks, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, are being sued in Chinese courts for tens of millions of dollars.