China’s Counterespionage Law Complements the National Security Law

The counterespionage law is the latest manifestation of China’s security state

People stand in front of images of Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Museum of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on Sept. 4, 2022. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Despite the fact that communism has failed to deliver its promises in every country in which it has been tried, Chinese leader Xi Jinping continues to push “communist innovation” as the way ahead for China, while claiming that “Marxism works, particularly when it is adapted to the Chinese context and the needs of the times,” as reported by state-run media China Daily on July 3.

Mr. Xi further claimed without proof that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “has mastered the scientific theory of Marxism, and has constantly promoted theoretical innovation in light of new realities.” The real translation: The CCP is in total control, and we implement arbitrary laws whenever we think they’re necessary to shore up that control over Chinese society.

Those “new realities” include the persistent yearning of individual Chinese people for the personal and economic freedoms enjoyed by other nations despite the relentless efforts of the CCP and its security apparatus to surveil, monitor, coerce, persecute when necessary, and control the actions of all Chinese citizens. And those “theoretical innovations” implied by Mr. Xi are typically arbitrary, byzantine laws, regulations, strictures, and diktats aimed at tightening control to eradicate perceived threats to the CCP.

The latest theoretical innovation is Beijing’s anti-espionage law, which was amended significantly and superseded the previous version on July 1. This update meant a general clampdown on Chinese citizens courtesy of Mr. Xi’s push to implement socialism with Chinese characteristics, rejuvenate the CCP (and root out its systemic corruption), and return to Marxist orthodoxy in all affairs while tightening Beijing’s control of Chinese society down to the actions of individual citizens.

For all practical purposes, this amended law is a mutually supporting companion law to Hong Kong’s national security law implemented by Beijing on June 30, 2020. The national security law and counterespionage law are intertwined. Let us examine the topic.

National Security Law

The original national security law was passed in 1993 to primarily regulate the work of China’s national security agencies, whose primary function is counterespionage. It was focused on people who were “endangering Chinese national security” by “(1) plotting to subvert the government, dismember the State or overthrow the socialist system; (2) joining an espionage organization or accepting it [sic] mission assigned by an espionage organization or by its agent; (3) stealing, secretly gathering, buying, or unlawfully providing State secrets; (4) instigating, luring or bribing a State functionary to turn traitor; or (5) committing any other act of sabotage endangering State security.”

Attendees from various forces march next to a banner promoting the new national security law at the end of a flag-raising ceremony to mark the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from Britain in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images

The law was renamed the counterespionage law in November 2014 as a new national security law was drafted and implemented in July 2015. The new law was expansive in scope, as reported at the time by The Diplomat, which stated, “China must defend its national security interests everywhere, including outer space and the polar ice caps” (with the details left for future rules and regulations).

The new law included a focus on cyber security, with an emphasis on “[making] core Internet and information technologies, infrastructure as well as information systems and data in key sectors ‘secure and controllable,'” The Diplomat stated.

The law incorporated the “great firewall” regulatory and technological system to monitor, limit, and block internet-based content as deemed appropriate by the CCP. It provided a legal basis for prosecuting law-breakers.

The Standing Committee of China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, passed the latest version of the national security law on June 2020; it includes 66 articles and covers four areas of criminal activity: secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign or external forces.

“Collusion with foreign or external forces” refers to espionage, which overlaps with the new counterespionage law. The 2020 national security law applies to anyone anywhere in the world and is expansively extraterritorial in its scope. According to Article 38, it can apply even to offenses committed “outside the region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the region.” It has been harshly applied in Hong Kong. It will certainly be applied to Taiwan after any cross-strait invasion by the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Counterespionage Law

The original counterespionage law was implemented in 2014, replacing the 1993 national security law. It primarily targeted “foreign spies and Chinese individuals and organizations” who collaborate with foreigners in capacities that could compromise state secrets. While Mr. Xi’s predecessors were focused on China’s economic progress, this law marked his shift in priorities to national security to enhance the power, authority, and security of the CCP over all other considerations.

The newly updated law further tightens the noose on Chinese citizens and foreigners seeking to do business in China. As reported by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center on June 30, China’s new counterespionage law “expands the definition of espionage from covering state secrets and intelligence to any documents, data, materials, or items related to national security interests, without defining terms.”

And the ambiguities in those definitions are made to order for arbitrary enforcement by Chinese authorities who could selectively designate any documents, data, materials, or other items relevant to Chinese national security. The objective is to suppress outward information flows from China that could include bona fide “secrets” or simply information considered embarrassing to Beijing.

Who wants to risk incarceration or worse under an ambiguous law?

Concluding Thoughts

The Chinese economy appears to be going south, as reported by The Epoch Times. The historic 140-year floods are wreaking vengeance on Chinese agriculture and food security. Nations in East and South Asia—such as India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan—are collaborating diplomatically and militarily in response to PLA belligerence.

What’s Mr. Xi’s response? To batten down the hatches at home, squeeze Chinese citizens with new laws, and move Chinese society further and further toward the authoritarian surveillance state envisioned in George Orwell’s epic novel “1984.”

According to some observers, the new counterespionage law will incentivize the Chinese to “spy on the neighbors,” just as the Soviet KGB and Nazi Gestapo once encouraged. On Aug. 1, Reuters paraphrased an announcement by the Chinese state security administration, writing, “China should encourage its citizens to join counter-espionage work, including creating channels for individuals to report suspicious activity as well as commending and rewarding them.”

Will the ambiguities in the new law discourage foreigners from doing business in China? Will foreign companies risk arbitrary enforcement of the overlapping counterespionage and national security laws? These are some severe and self-imposed headwinds facing China’s export economy.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.