End-User Transparency in China-Related Trade: A Conditional Process Model of Supplier-Level Compliance under Layered Controls

End-user transparency has become a transaction-level compliance practice in China-related trade where goods, technologies or services are dual-use, strategically sensitive, dependent on internationally exposed financial or logistical infrastructure, or vulnerable to diversion. This article develops a bounded conditional process model explaining how information about the ultimate consignee, final user, intended application, destination, ownership and potential re-export route becomes a condition of trade. A qualitative, mechanism-centered documentary analysis examined 56 public sources: 20 Chinese legal, regulatory and official documents; five Chinese corporate disclosures; nine foreign official materials; and 22 scholarly or analytical works. The corpus was managed through a structured source-by-code matrix and analyzed in two passes that separated legal force, transmitting actor, transaction trigger, requested information, organizational control, outcome and data-governance implications. Six documentary exemplars-Huawei, ZTE, China National Petroleum Corporation and three anonymized exporters reported by the Ministry of Commerce-document published compliance systems, review gates and transaction-level procedures. The model comprises activation, transmission, firm-level internalization and transaction resolution, while permitting direct legal, infrastructural, contractual and precautionary entry pathways, reassessment and organizational feedback. It also specifies a conflict-management sequence for transactions exposed simultaneously to foreign controls and Chinese countermeasure rules: identify the legally bound actor, separate information needs from substantive restrictions, seek official guidance or permission where available, use proportionate alternative verification or lawful restructuring, and withdraw or report when no legally sustainable path remains. Calibrated traceability links documentary depth to transaction risk and data safeguards to information sensitivity. The public record supports documented mechanisms, not population prevalence or verified programmed effectiveness.