Bejing Revises Law on State Secrets - WSJ.com

BEIJING—China's legislature approved a revision to the country's law on state secrets that makes more explicit the responsibilities of government agencies—and companies—to help protect a range of sensitive information. The changes, however, keep vague the definition of what constitutes a state secret.

The amendment to the 21-year-old Protection of State Secrets Law, adopted Thursday by the standing committee of the National People's Congress, explicitly extends requirements to Internet companies and telecommunications operators to cooperate with Chinese authorities in investigations into leaks of state secrets. If the companies discover the Internet or other public networks are being used to publish information that involves state secrets, the amended law requires them to report it to relevant authorities, halt the transmissions and preserve records of the activity.

The amended law also promotes the wider use of technical measures by government agencies to protect classified information, such as using firewalls and keeping drives with classified information off of public networks. According to a legislative investigation cited by the state-run Xinhua news agency last year, more than 70% of China's state-secret leaks occur via the Internet.

At a news conference Thursday, Sun Zhenping, a senior official in the legislature's legislative-affairs commission, said Internet operators wouldn't be expected "to monitor every piece of information, but only to report the most obvious ones that are suspected of disclosing state secrets." He didn't elaborate.

He said the requirement for Internet companies to cooperate with official investigations isn't new, pointing to the 1997 Information Security Regulations that also say such firms must report a range of illegal activity—including state secrets leaks—to public-security authorities.

Yahoo Inc. came under fire several years ago after it was discovered that it disclosed personal information about Chinese journalist Shi Tao in response to a Chinese police request in 2004. The information was used in the prosecution of Mr. Shi on state-secrets charges for sending a sensitive email to an overseas democracy Web site. He was sentenced by a Chinese court to ten years in prison. Yahoo has since turned over control of its China operations to Chinese company Alibaba Group, in which Yahoo owns a 39% stake, and Yahoo executives have apologized to Mr. Shi's family over the incident.

Alibaba didn't immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment on the new amendment.

Google Inc. chose not to locate servers for its Gmail email service in China so that it couldn't be compelled to turn over information on users to authorities. Google last month moved its Chinese search site to Hong Kong to avoid having to comply with Chinese government censorship requirements.

Last year, China arrested four executives of Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto PLC, including an Australian citizen, initially claiming they had stolen state secrets. That was later changed to the less serious charge of stealing commercial secrets, as well as accepting bribes. Last month, the four men were found guilty of those charges, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 14 years, in a trial criticized for its lack of transparency.

On Monday, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued broad new guidelines to protect the commercial secrets of state firms. Its rules highlighted a broad definition for what constitutes a commercial secret and suggested cases where a commercial secret could be interpreted as a state secret.

Flora Sapio, a lecturer on Chinese law at Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples, Italy, said the state-secrets-law amendment also restricts the ability of lower-level authorities to classify information as state secrets, and therefore appears to be "an attempt to centralize control of state secrets." She said amendment is "an old piece of legislation is being brought up to date according to the needs of an authoritarian regime."

The changes do little to address the law's biggest target of criticism: that the definition of state secrets is vague. Almost any information can be classified as a state secret in China, and even information publicly circulated can be designated as such if, for example, authorities decide it causes harm to the economic interests of the state.

"The new rules in the draft law were already kind of implemented in the past," said Hong Bo, a prominent commentator in China on Internet issues. "The main issues that remain to be clarified are: What is the definition of state secrets and who has to protect such state secrets?"

State-secrets cases in China are subject to less transparency and fewer procedural protections for defendants. Evidence in such cases is considered confidential and trials are conducted behind closed doors. In some cases, the defendant's access to counsel may be limited.

Critics of the revised law also contend it presents potential conflicts with regulations aimed at increasing the government's transparency that took effect two years ago.