![]() ![]() The raids have spooked international businesses, at a time when the Chinese government is trying to woo foreign investment to help revive a slowing economy hampered by three years of zero-Covid restrictions. The perception that security has replaced economic growth as Beijing’s top priority is compounded by multiple recent raids on foreign companies, including American consultancy Bain & Company and due diligence firm Mintz Group. ![]() In Hong Kong, a sweeping national security law was imposed by Beijing to stamp out dissent after huge democracy protests roiled the city. “Everything in Xi’s PRC is national security and there is an intensifying focus on better coordinating security and development, with the security side winning out over the economics side it appears,” Bill Bishop, a long-time China observer, wrote in the Sinocism newsletter, referring to China with its official name, the People’s Republic of China. Most recently, it broadened the scope of its already sweeping counter-espionage law from covering state secrets and intelligence to any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security and interests.” ![]() Experts say foreign businesses should be worried It extends from the deep sea and the polar regions to space, as well as big data and artificial intelligence.Ī comic strip poster warning of foreign spies is displayed at a subway station in Beijing on ApKyodo/AP/FileĬhina has widened its already sweeping counter-espionage law. He has expanded the concept of national security to cover everything from politics, economy, defense, culture and ecology to cyberspace. Since coming to power a decade ago, Xi has made national security a key paradigm that permeates all aspects of China’s governance, experts say. He also called for China to push ahead with the construction of a national security risk monitoring and early warning system, enhance national security education and improve the management of data and artificial intelligence security. In face of what he called a “complex and grave” situation, Xi said China must speed up the modernization of its national security system and capabilities, with a focus on making them more effective in “actual combat and practical use.” The latest stern instructions from Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, comes as Beijing faces a host of challenges, from a struggling economy to what it sees as an increasingly hostile international environment. “We must adhere to bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking, and get ready to undergo the major tests of high winds and rough waves, and even perilous, stormy seas,” he added. “The complexity and difficulty of the national security issues we now face have increased significantly,” Xi said Tuesday at a meeting of the party’s National Security Commission, state news agency Xinhua reported. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on his top national security officials to think about “worst case” scenarios and prepare for “stormy seas,” as the ruling Communist Party hardens efforts to counter any perceived internal and external threats. ![]()
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