BEIJING — China’s
legislature approved an antiterrorism law on Sunday after months of
international controversy, including criticism from human rights groups,
business lobbies and President Obama.
Critics
had said that the draft version of the law used a recklessly broad
definition of terrorism, gave the government new censorship powers and
authorized state access to sensitive commercial data.
The
government argued that the requirements were needed to prevent terrorist
attacks. Opponents countered that the new powers could be abused to
monitor peaceful citizens and steal technological secrets.Whether the complaints persuaded the government to dilute the bill was not clear: State news media did not immediately publish the text of the new law. But an official who works for the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress indicated that at least some rules authorizing greater state access to encrypted data remained in the law.
“Not only in China, but also in many places
internationally, growing numbers of terrorists are using the Internet to
promote and incite terrorism, and are using the Internet to organize,
plan and carry out terrorist acts,” the official, Li Shouwei, told a
news conference in Beijing.
Mr. Li, a criminal law expert, said
the antiterrorism law included a requirement that telecommunication and
Internet service providers “shall provide technical interfaces,
decryption and other technical support and assistance to public security
and state security agencies when they are following the law to avert
and investigate terrorist activities.”The approval by the legislature, which is controlled by the Communist Party, came as Beijing has become increasingly jittery about antigovernment violence, especially in the ethnically divided region of Xinjiang in western China, where members of the Uighur minority have been at growing odds with the authorities.
Chinese leaders have ordered security forces to be on alert against possible terrorist slaughter of the kind that devastated Paris in November.
Over the weekend, the shopping neighborhood of Sanlitun in Beijing was under reinforced guard by People’s Armed Police troops after several foreign embassies, including that of the United States, warned that there were heightened security risks there around Christmas.
In addition, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday that it would expel a French journalist, Ursula Gauthier, for a report that suggested the Chinese government’s unyielding policies were stoking violence by Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Uighurs
are a Turkic ethnic minority, largely Sunni Muslim, who have become
ever more discontented with controls on their religion and culture and
with an influx into Xinjiang of ethnic Han migrants. The government says
that violent acts by disaffected Uighurs have been inspired and
instigated by international extremist groups, but critics say the
conflict arises from homegrown disaffection.
In March of last year, Uighur assailants used knives to slash to death
29 people at a train station in Kunming, a city in southwest China.
Last month, the government in Xinjiang said Chinese security forces had killed 28 people who were accused of orchestrating an attack on a coal mine that killed 16 people.
Human rights groups have warned that the
new law will give even more intrusive powers to the Chinese government,
which already has broad, virtually unchecked authority to monitor and
detain citizens and to demand information from companies and Internet
services.
“While the Chinese authorities do have a legitimate duty
in safeguarding their citizens from violent attacks, passing this law
will have some negative repercussions for human rights,” William Nee, a
researcher on China for Amnesty International who is based in Hong Kong,
said in emailed comments.“Essentially, this law could give the authorities even more tools in censoring unwelcome information and crafting their own narrative in how the ‘war on terror’ is being waged,” Mr. Nee said.
The final draft law defined
terrorism as “advocacy or actions of using violence, sabotage, threats
and other means to create social panic and endanger public safety and to
violate persons and property, or to coerce state organs and
international organizations, in order to achieve political, ideological
and other goals,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported on Monday.
International companies that use encrypted technology in China had been worried by provisions in the earlier draft law
that would have required them to hand over code and other information
so that the authorities could monitor users. That could affect
multinational companies like Cisco, IBM and Apple, all of which have big
stakes in China.
“These companies have been dealing with this
increased, let’s call it oversight, for the last two or three years,”
said Scott D. Livingston, a lawyer who works for Simone IP Services, a consulting firm in Hong Kong, and who has followed the discussions
over the law. If the antiterrorism law’s requirements remained the same
as in the earlier draft, Mr. Livingston said, “from the government’s
perspective, you have a stronger basis to request this access.”In January, foreign business groups wrote to President Xi Jinping to voice collective unease about China’s Internet policies, including the draft legislation, which could have required handing over sensitive data and commercial secrets.
In an interview with Reuters in early March, Mr. Obama criticized the proposed legislation and similar initiatives by the Chinese government.
The proposed rules “would essentially force all foreign companies, including U.S. companies, to turn over to the Chinese government mechanisms where they could snoop and keep track of all the users of those services,” Mr. Obama said. “Tech companies are not going to be willing to do that.”
A few days before the Antiterrorism Law passed, Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a regular news briefing that criticism from the Obama administration was unfounded.
Mr. Li, the criminal law expert with the National People’s Congress, insisted that the new law was no reason for multinationals to be alarmed. “These rules will not affect the ordinary business activities of the firms concerned,” he said.
On Sunday, the legislators also approved legal changes to put in place China’s new policy, announced in late October, allowing all married couples to have two children, replacing the decades-old rule that restricted most urban couples to one child. The two-child rule will take effect Friday.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/world/asia/china-passes-antiterrorism-law-that-critics-fear-may-overreach.html?_r=1