Beijing urges US to objectively view intelligence laws
Global Times
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A visitor checks out Google's AI-powered Arts and Culture display at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference held from Monday to Wednesday in Shanghai. (Photo: Global Times)


The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday urged the US to view China's intelligence related laws in a comprehensive and objective manner instead of making one-sided, biased and wrong interpretations.

Geng Shuang, spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a routine press conference on Monday that China's National Intelligence Law states not only the obligations of organizations and citizens to lawfully support, assist and coordinate with the country's intelligence service, but also the obligations of the national intelligence service to carry out its work according to law, respect and protect human rights, and uphold the rights and interests of individuals and organizations.

There are many provisions in other Chinese laws to protect the rights and interests of organizations and citizens, including data security and privacy, Geng said. 

Geng's remarks came after US Vice President Mike Pence's recent remarks at the 2019 Munich Security Conference in which he said that the US has been clear with its security partners on the "threat" posed by Huawei and other Chinese telecoms companies, as Chinese law requires them to provide Chinese security departments with access to any data that touches their network or equipment.

US officials claimed that under China's National Intelligence Law Chinese companies have to cooperate with the Chinese government on intelligence work. 

Geng said that he noticed that some US officials have expressed such views several times.  

Geng said that it is an international practice to maintain state security in the form of legislation and to require organizations and individuals to cooperate with national intelligence work. There are similar laws in the Five Eyes Alliance, namely the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and other Western countries. The Chinese government has required Chinese companies to abide by local laws and regulations when doing business overseas.

"China opposes other countries bypassing the common cooperation channels and unilaterally using their domestic laws to force enterprises and individuals to provide them data, information and intelligence located in China," Geng said. 

China has not and will not require enterprises or individuals to violate local laws and collect or provide Chinese government data, information and intelligence stored in China through "backdoors," said Geng. 

"The US and a few of its allies apply double standards and mislead the public on this issue to suppress Chinese enterprises' legitimate development rights and interests and interfere in economic behavior through political means, which is hypocritical, immoral and unfair," Geng said. 

China hopes countries truly abide by the principles of equal competition to maintain a fair, just and nondiscriminatory marketing environment to boost the sound development of related industry cooperation, he said.