China played down US concerns that proposed “anti-terror legislation” would give the Chinese government sweeping power to police electronic communications and marginalize foreign companies fighting for a share of China’s US$465 billion technology market, saying yesterday that the law is purely designed to address domestic security issues.
National People’s Congress spokeswoman Fu Ying (傅瑩) said the legislation is in line with the kind of access to electronic communications that Western governments, including the US and Britain, have sought.
She said such access would be aimed at preventing and investigating terrorism and would come with strict restrictions.
Photo: AFP
“It will not affect the legitimate rights of Internet operators,” Fu said at a news conference in Beijing.
Four US Cabinet members, including Secretary of State John Kerry and the US trade representative wrote to their Chinese counterparts last month, expressing “serious concerns” about the draft anti-terror law and rules for technology procurement at Chinese banks, a US official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
China’s moves to strengthen cybersecurity come in the wake of revelations of widespread US government surveillance, and have raised questions about the extent to which government surveillance will interfere with the ability of private companies to effectively globalize.
Some say China is seeking to go no farther than the US in the name of national security.
“We just did what the Americans have already done,’’ said Shen Dingli (沈丁立), director of Fudan University’s Center for American Studies. “You could choose to leave, leaving the opportunity of making money from 1.3 billion people. We have substitutes.”
According to the latest publicly available draft of the law, which is expected to be discussed at the National People’s Congress this week, network operators and service providers doing business in China would have to build in “backdoors” for government surveillance, hand over encryption keys to Chinese authorities and store user data within China.
Ted Moran, the Marcus Wallenberg professor of international business and finance at Georgetown University, said US laws do all of that and more, giving the US government the reach to pursue user data stored in other countries.
“There’s all kinds of hypocrisy going on here,” Moran said.
He said there is more legal and congressional oversight enshrined in US law, though its effectiveness is a matter of debate.
Business groups worry that the language in China’s anti-terror law is so broad that it could undermine the ability of US companies to send encrypted e-mails or operate the kind of private corporate networks commonly used to secure communications.
“In addressing law enforcement and security objectives, governments should consider the impact on economic security and growth, global commerce and users’ privacy and security,” US-China Business Council in Shanghai director Jacob Parker said.
German Ambassador to China Michael Clauss also expressed concern that the cybersecurity policy “could make market access for foreign companies in China much more difficult.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
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