China
says tech firms have nothing to fear from anti-terror
law
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[December 23, 2015]
BEIJING (Reuters) - Technology
companies have nothing to fear from China's new anti-terrorism law which
aims to prevent and probe terror activities and does not affect their
copyright, China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, rebuffing U.S.
criticism as unwarranted.
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The draft anti-terrorism law has caused concern in Western capitals
as it could require technology firms to install "back doors" in
products or to hand over sensitive information such as encryption
keys to the government.
The law is currently having another reading at the latest session of
the standing committee for China's largely rubber-stamp parliament,
the National People's Congress, which ends on Sunday.
This week, the U.S. State Department said it had expressed "serious
concerns" to China about the law which would do more harm than good
against the threat of terrorism.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said he was
"dissatisfied" with the U.S. position and hoped they respected
China's law-making process and did not adopt "double standards".
China faced a serious threat from terrorism and needed to improve
its legal framework to deal with the problem, Hong added.
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"What we are doing is reasonable and fair," he said.
Terrorists had been using the Internet to operate and China needed
laws to cope with this, Hong added.
"While formulating this law, we referred to the laws of other
countries, including the United States," he said, pointing to the
U.S. Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a
wiretapping law.
"The draft of our anti-terrorism law mandates the obligation of
telecommunications operators, Internet servers and service providers
to assist public and state security organ in stopping and probing
terrorist activities," Hong added.
"This is both totally rational and necessary. This rule won't limit
the lawful operations of companies, does not provide a 'back door'
and will affect neither the firms' intellectual property nor
Internet users' freedom of speech."
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Officials in Washington have argued the law, combined with new draft
banking and insurance rules and a slew of anti-trust investigations,
amounts to unfair regulatory pressure targeting foreign companies.
China's national security law adopted in July requires all key
network infrastructure and information systems to be "secure and
controllable".
The U.S. has also said the new law could restrict freedom of
expression and association.
Hong said China paid great attention to the relationship between
fighting terrorism and protecting human rights and would ensure
people's legal rights are protected.
Officials say China faces a growing threat from militants and
separatists, especially in its unruly Western region of Xinjiang,
where hundreds have died in violence in the past few years.
Rights groups, though, doubt the existence of a cohesive militant
group in Xinjiang and say the unrest mostly stems from anger among
the region's Muslim Uighur people over restrictions on their
religion and culture.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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