Technology Export Controls in China

A technology export is still an export when nothing physical crosses the border.

Controlled technology can sit on the dual-use list, on prohibited/restricted technology-export catalogues (often discussed with MOFCOM tech-import/export rules), or be caught by catch-all. Providing it to a foreign person — by download, API, training, or a Chinese employee working in a foreign plant — can be the regulated act. Customs may never see it. Record what was transferred, to whom, and whether a licence or registration was required. Patent publication can destroy secrecy but does not by itself authorise a controlled tech export.

The classification screen

4 questions before you choose the route.

This page identifies the right question and evidence. It does not determine the legal outcome on a reader’s facts.

What is being provided — data, software, know-how, or a service?

Name the technical content.

What

Which catalogue, if any, lists it?

Dual-use vs tech-export prohibited/restricted vs neither.

List

How does the foreign person get it?

Ship, email, repo, SaaS, training, personnel.

How

Is a contract registration or a control licence required?

Tech-import/export vs ECL licence are different papers.

Paper

Working rule: Controlled technology can sit on the dual-use list, on prohibited/restricted technology-export catalogues (often discussed with MOFCOM tech-import/export rules), or be caught by catch-all.

What changes the answer

The signal ledger.

These facts move the question beyond a label and into a product, money-flow and control analysis.

Signal

Ask the operating question

Why it changes the route

Engineer on a plane

Will staff carry the know-how in their heads to a foreign line?

Personnel-based transfer is a classic miss.

Broader Trade & Customs analysis needed

Do the facts extend beyond the threshold Technology Export Controls in China question?

That can be the export.

Catalogue mismatch

Did you only check dual-use and skip tech-export catalogues?

Two books; both can bite.

Prepare before you escalate

Bring a compact evidence docket—not a pitch deck.

Give a compliance team or counsel the operating facts that reveal the perimeter.

01Technical descriptionWhat know-how or software is in scope.

02Catalogue checkDual-use and tech-export lists, dated.

03Transfer methodHow the foreign party will receive it.

04Existing licences/registrationsMOFCOM papers already obtained.

Common confusions

Questions people ask before they build.

Short answers for orientation. The right result can change with the service model and current rules.

Is teaching a foreign customer how to use a machine an export?

It can be, if the teaching conveys controlled technology beyond publicly available operation manuals. Scope the training.

Does a patent filing export the technology?

Public disclosure is not the same as a licensed export to a chosen foreign user. Foreign filing and control-list analysis are separate.

Primary authorities

Reviewed sources support orientation, not a fact-specific assessment.

PRC Export Control Law (gov.cn)

MOFCOM

National laws database (NPC)