China has passed a wide-ranging national security law expanding its legal reach over the internet and even outer space as concerns grow about ever-tighter limits on rights.
Since Xi Jinping came to power, the ruling Communist party has overseen a crackdown on activists, while unrest related to the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang has worsened and spread.
Zheng Shuna, a senior official at the National People’s Congress (NPC), said: “China’s national security situation has become increasingly severe.”
She said China was under pressure to maintain its national sovereignty and handle “political security and social security, while dealing with internal society”.
It would “not leave any room for disputes, compromises or interference” when protecting its core interests, Zheng added.
The NPC standing committee passed the law by 154 votes to none with one abstention, officials at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing said.
The legislation is extensive and couched in general terms, with few exact details such as the sentences for violators.
The practice, which leaves the authorities ample room for interpretation, is common in China, with the government issuing detailed regulations later.
The law vows to “protect people’s fundamental interests”, the state news agency Xinhua said, including “sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity ... (and) sustainable development”.
It declares both cyberspace and outer space to be part of China’s national security interest, along with the ocean depths and polar regions, where Beijing has been extending its exploratory activities.
The text requires key internet and information systems to be “secure and controllable”, Xinhua said, potentially raising concerns for foreign technology companies.
Zheng said the internet, which is subject to strict censorship in China, was “a significant infrastructure facility of the country” and Beijing’s sovereignty over it should be “respected and maintained”.
She said the new law provided a legal foundation for “the management of internet activities on China’s territory and the resisting of activities that undermine China’s cyberspace security”.
Xi has made security concerns a key issue and chaired the first meeting of the country’s national security commission last April.
Beijing has repeatedly clashed with Washington over cyberspying and is embroiled in longstanding territorial rows in the East China Sea with Japan, and in the South China Sea with several other countries.
Maya Wang, a China researcher for the US-based group Human Rights Watch, said all governments were justified in having their own national security laws and apparatus, but the content of China’s law had caused concern.
She said: “It includes elements that define criticism of the government as a form of subversion.”
“It is very vague in defining what kind of specific actions would constitute a citizen endangering state security.”
Wang said the measure was part of a series of state security legislation – including a new anti-terrorism law – that as a whole “reduces the capacity of civil society to criticise the government and hold the government accountable”.
Campaigners said the draft anti-terror law contains measures for a “non-stop, strike hard campaign” in Xinjiang, the homeland of the Uighur minority group, signalling that a crackdown initially intended to last a year could continue indefinitely.
China has already rolled out tough measures to confront what it labels terrorism in the western region, sentencing to death scores of people while hundreds have been jailed or detained.
The new national security legislation does not apply to Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” principle that gives the former British colony extensive autonomy.
But it mentions the territory, along with Macau. Alan Leong, a pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, told the broadcaster RTHK it “can be considered as giving pressure to Hong Kong” to enact its own security law.
A security bill put forward by the territory’s government in 2003 sparked a large protest, with 500,000 people taking to the streets, before the authorities scrapped the measure.