China on Monday passed new cybersecurity legislation aimed at tightening speech online, a move that met with prompt criticism from international watchdog groups.
The measure, passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, makes it a crime to undermine the country’s “national honor” or engage in conduct that “disturbs economic or social order,” including “the socialist system,” and prohibits users from employing anonymizing software such as Tor to mask their identity online.
Groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were quick to criticize the law for hampering free speech, while business organizations claimed it was bad for trade. In a statement, the European Chamber of Commerce complained of an “overall lack of transparency,” calling the legislation a “wide-reaching” measure that “created a great deal of uncertainty and negativity in the business environment.”
Chinese officials disagreed, and reciprocated the criticism over transparency. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang argued the law contained “no significant differences” compared to others internationally, and said the process used to pass the measure was “more transparent than other governments in this regard.”
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The country made a similar argument in favor of Internet censorship at the end of 2015, when it responded to international criticism over a measure aimed at weakening end-to-end encryption by accusing the United States of using different laws for the same purpose.
China’s “Great Firewall” blocks websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter. Internet Information Office chief Lu Wei, the face of censorship in the country, famously said in December that it was China’s goal to foster Internet freedom, but that “order is our means.”
The country consistently scores last for Internet freedom on the annual list of 65 countries ranked by Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Freedom House.
