“The fact that these different pieces of legislation are all moving forward in tandem indicates the seriousness of Beijing’s commitment as well as the growing influence of hardliners shaping China’s technology policy agenda”, Samm Sacks, an analyst at U.S.-based consulting firm Eurasia Group, said in an emailed statement.
The legislation also reaches into politics, culture, the military, space, technology, the environment and the Chinese economy.
Foreign business groups and diplomats contend that the sweeping scope of the national security law, approved by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, amounts to a national security overreach.
Under the law, a national security review and regulatory system, along with related mechanisms, would be established to screen items that have or could have a bearing on national security — among them foreign investment, certain materials and key technologies, network and information technology products and services, and projects tied to national security, it said.
At a press conference after the legislative session closed, Ms Zheng Shuna, a member of the NPC Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission, said overarching legislation was needed to address “ever-growing security challenges”.
Reports indicate the law will “protect people’s fundamental interests”.
Security has been a hot-button issue in China since a National Security Commission was created in 2013. On the external front, China must safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests.
China has enacted a new security law that hands the government control over its Internet infrastructure and any critical data.
China’s first National Security Law came into force in 1993.
Campaigners say the draft anti-terror law includes measures for a “non-stop strike hard campaign” in Xinjiang, homeland of the Uighur ethnic minority, signalling that a crackdown first intended to last a year could go on indefinitely.
China has already introduced tough measures to confront what it labels terrorism in the western region, sentencing scores of people to death while hundreds more have been jailed or detained.
But Leung’s remarks did not ease fears that the new national law will affect Hongkongers.
The Hong Kong Journalists Assn. said the legislation posed a potential threat to the freedom of expression enjoyed by citizens of the semiautonomous former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, adding that it could increase pressure on the territory to adopt controversial anti-subversion legislation that was shelved several years ago amid public protests. This spring, authorities proposed a law that would have required tech companies working in the banking sector to hand encryption keys and passcodes to government security forces; the effort was dropped amid opposition from both foreign and domestic businesses.
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula, with the promise of a high degree of autonomy.
