Immunity law better defends nation's interest: China Daily editorial

The legislative work of a country should always meet its developmental and diplomatic demands. The drafting and passing of the Law on Foreign State Immunity at a session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee — after more than three years of preparation during which public opinions were widely solicited — is one such case.

The reason the country's top legislature passed the law last week was the nefarious efforts of certain entities in the United States three years ago to smear China and its government by filing lawsuits against China in US courts in 2020 for "mishandling" the COVID-19 pandemic and seek legal redress. That their action violated the universally accepted legal principle of sovereign immunity, which basically means a national government or its agencies cannot be sued in the courts of another country, hardly made any difference to the US administration.

Those US entities hoped the courts would rule in their favor based on the interpretation of "exceptional circumstances", as stated in the US sovereign immunity law, holding China legally accountable for the "huge human and economic losses". The artifice was possible because the US has adopted the principle of "restrictive immunity", which allows lawsuits to be filed against a foreign government in "exceptional circumstances".

The legal drama was aimed at humiliating China and shifting the blame for their own government's abject failure to respond to the pandemic and provide medical care to the American people — the US accounted for the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

Yet the legal sham highlighted the need for enacting China's own immunity law that would suit the changing international situation and help better protect the country's sovereignty and interests. The Law on Foreign State Immunity, to take effect on Jan 1, 2024, has 23 provisions and stipulates that China, like many other countries, will follow the principle of restrictive immunity instead of absolute sovereign immunity.

More important, the principle of reciprocity in state immunity has been adopted, which means when a foreign country abolishes, restricts or downgrades the sovereign immunity it has granted China, China can take necessary countermeasures in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.

The days when the Chinese government and its agencies were made a scapegoat to stand trial only as defendants in foreign courts without any legal weapon to fight back are history. While the law marks an end to China's previous practice of granting "absolute sovereign immunity" to foreign states, foreign states and their property in China will continue to enjoy normal sovereign immunity as before.