waive its immunity by voluntarily stating so, but that should a government intervene in a suit (e.g. to make protests), it should not be viewed as waiver of immunity. Chinese state-owned companies considered instrumental to the state have claimed sovereign immunity in lawsuits brought against them in foreign courts before. China's view is that sovereign immunity is a lawful right and interest that their enterprises are entitled to protect. Some examples of Chinese state-owned companies that have claimed sovereign immunity in foreign lawsuits are the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) and China National Building Material. Hong Kong In 2011, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ruled that absolute sovereign immunity applies in Hong Kong, as the Court found that Hong Kong, as a Special Administrative Region of China, could not have policies on state immunity that was inconsistent with China. The ruling was an outcome of the Democratic Republic of the Congo v FG Hemisphere Associates case in 2011. Democratic Republic of the Congo v FG Hemisphere Associates (2011) The Democratic Republic of the Congo and its state-owned electricity company Société nationale d'électricité (SNEL) defaulted on payments of a debt owed to an energy company, Energoinvest. During arbitration, Energoinvest was awarded damages against the Congolese government and SNEL. This was reassigned by Energoinvest to FG Hemisphere Associates LLC. FG Hemisphere subsequently learned that the Congolese government entered into a separate joint venture with Chinese companies later, in which the Congolese government would be paid US$221 million in mining entry fees. As a result, FG Hemisphere applied to collect these fees in order to enforce the earlier arbitral award. The Congolese government asserted sovereign immunity in the legal proceedings. This was eventually brought to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, when the Congolese government fought to overturn an earlier Court of Appeal decision which had ruled that: as restrictive sovereign immunity applied in Hong Kong, the Congolese government had no immunity in commercial proceedings. if absolute sovereign immunity had applied in Hong Kong, the Congolese government had waived their sovereign immunity rights in this case. The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ruled 3:2 that the Congolese government had not waived its immunity in the Hong Kong courts, and that as a Special Administrative Region of China, Hong Kong could not have policies on state immunity that were inconsistent with China's. Therefore, the doctrine of sovereign immunity applied