On August 5, 2026, with the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) leading and the Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA) in support, six countermeasures against the U.S. were rolled out in a single day. Individually, each one is a reuse of an old tool; together they form a new map. For the first time, China's countermeasures have extended from "regulating items" to regulating certification, audits and services — every checkpoint Washington uses to block Chinese products has itself become a point that can be blocked in reverse.
I. The List of Six
The first measure tightens drone export controls. MOFCOM Announcement No. 34 of 2026 stipulates that exports to the U.S. of drones listed on the dual-use items export control list, together with their critical components and related technologies, will be subject to strict case-by-case review, with licensing facilitation measures withheld. This is the third tightening of drone controls since last year — from complete aircraft to components, from routine review to "strict case-by-case review" — and it continues directly the sequence of drone-control iterations recorded on earlier pages.
The second measure invokes the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law once again. MOFCOM Order No. 2 places six U.S. entities, including Applied DNA Sciences, on the countermeasures list and prohibits domestic organizations and individuals from transacting or cooperating with them. The third measure was issued in the same batch: the American firm Compliance Testing LLC is placed on the countermeasures list on its own — with the rationale stated plainly: the company "assisted and supported the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in taking measures."
The fourth measure is the most unusual of the day: MOFCOM Announcement No. 33 of 2026 opens a foreign-trade national security review into imported printing and copying office equipment fitted with foreign system software — China's first-ever foreign-trade national security review, launched under Articles 41 and 42 of the Foreign Trade Law. The subject of the review is not any single American company but an entire product category: printing and copying equipment controlled by foreign driver software and embedded software.
The fifth measure comes from CNCA: it suspends the practice of China's CCC-certification designated bodies entrusting U.S.-based certification bodies to carry out post-certification factory follow-up inspections. The sixth measure is the overarching frame — a MOFCOM spokesperson's remarks in response to press questions on the countermeasures, laying out the background and the posture in one go: the FCC has "time and again" introduced China-related restrictions (telecom operators, testing laboratories, drones, routers, submarine cables — and, most recently, robots and inverters); on July 31 the U.S. side added more than 40 Chinese entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list; and China's countermeasures are "restrained overall," but "if the U.S. side insists on introducing new restrictive measures against China, China will take further countermeasures."
II. Why Printing and Copying Equipment Merits a First-of-Its-Kind Review
Lingshi Xiantan (领事闲谈, a commentary account) pinpointed what makes the fourth measure significant: "Imported printing and copying equipment is the most common opening for national security risk." That sentence deserves unpacking. Printing and copying all-in-one machines are virtually ubiquitous in modern office networks, and a substantial share of their control software, embedded firmware, drivers and remote maintenance channels come from foreign vendors. A single device simultaneously connects the corporate intranet, cloud services and the vendor's back-end maintenance system — making it at once the most ordinary piece of office hardware and the most easily overlooked covert channel. Bringing such equipment within the scope of a national security review effectively fills in the "office endpoints" square on the US–China tech-contest checklist.
Shen Yi's comment came in just ten characters: "打，奉陪到底；谈，大门敞开" — "Fight, and we will see it through to the end; talk, and the door stands wide open." Read alongside the spokesperson's "restrained overall" characterization, this is the complete posture of the current round: the level of the response is chosen by the other side, but the toolbox always has a new layer ready.
III. The List Itself Speaks
The six-entity list carries more information than the measures themselves: Applied DNA Sciences (supply-chain traceability testing), Strata Reservoir (testing services for the oil industry), Altana Technologies (a supply-chain data platform), the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA, a supply-chain audit body for the electronics industry), the Weitai Group (a labor-audit institution), and Human Rights in China (HRIC). The first five are all technical service providers embedded in the Xinjiang-related "forced labor" narrative — what they supply is not policy, but an "evidence production line": test reports, audit certifications, supply-chain data. Placing an industry self-regulatory body like the RBA directly on the countermeasures list amounts to a declaration: the entire service chain that conducts political manipulation in the name of "compliance auditing" now falls within the reach of China's countermeasures.
This differs from earlier rounds that sanctioned "entities assisting the U.S. side in implementing sanctions" — those targets were mostly government-linked institutions directly involved in sanctions. This time the aim is precise, landing squarely on the "audit and certification" link. For the first time, a sanctions list covers the service institutions inside multinational supply chains that look neutral on the surface but in practice execute political screening.
How this connects to earlier pages: the June 22 entry on the "dual-track launch of countermeasures against the U.S." recorded the twin tracks of export controls plus a procurement ban. The current round expands the tracks into a four-layer combination — items (drones) + entities (the six firms plus the testing company) + a trade-security review (printing and copying equipment) + the certification system (the suspension of CCC entrustment). Every time the U.S. side switches levers — optical modules, robots, inverters, certification, forced-labor lists — China answers at the corresponding position. The countermeasures toolbox is not getting bigger; it is getting more precisely matched.
Full texts of MOFCOM Order No. 2 and Order No. 3: countermeasures against six U.S. entities including Applied DNA Sciences and against Compliance Testing LLC, under the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (via Yuyuan Tantian, 2026-08-05); MOFCOM Announcement No. 34 of 2026: strengthened export controls on drone-related dual-use items to the U.S., with strict case-by-case review and no licensing facilitation (via Yuyuan Tantian); MOFCOM Announcement No. 33 of 2026: the first-ever foreign-trade national security review, targeting imported printing and copying office equipment with foreign system software, under Articles 41 and 42 of the Foreign Trade Law, to be concluded within 12 months (via Yuyuan Tantian); MOFCOM spokesperson's remarks to the press: background on the FCC's series of China-related measures, the addition of more than 40 Chinese entities to the UFLPA list on July 31, the overall restraint of the countermeasures, and the warning of further countermeasures if the U.S. side insists on new restrictions (via People's Daily); "Imported printing and copying equipment is the most common opening for national security risk" (via Lingshi Xiantan); "Fight, and we will see it through to the end; talk, and the door stands wide open" (via Shen Yi).