- China implemented new regulations on Monday under its toughened counterespionage law, which enables authorities to inspect smartphones, personal computers and other electronic devices, raising fears among expatriates and foreign businesspeople about possible arbitrary enforcement.
- A Japanese travel agency official said the new regulations could further prevent tourists from coming to China. Some Japanese companies have told their employees not to bring smartphones from Japan when they make business trips to the neighboring country, according to officials from the companies.
The new rules, which came into effect one year after the revised anti-espionage law expanded the definition of espionage activities, empower Chinese national security authorities to inspect data, including emails, pictures, and videos stored on electronic devices.
Such inspections can be conducted without warrants in emergencies. If officers are unable to examine electronic devices on-site, they are authorized to have those items brought to designated places, according to the regulations.
It remains unclear what qualifies as emergencies under the new rules. Foreign individuals and businesses are now expected to face increased surveillance by Chinese authorities as a result of these regulations.
A 33-year-old British teacher told Kyodo News at a Beijing airport Monday that she refrains from using smartphones for communications. A Japanese man in his 40s who visited the Chinese capital for a business trip said he will “try to avoid attracting attention” from security authorities in the country.
In June, China’s State Security Ministry said the new regulations will target “individuals and organizations related to spy groups,” and ordinary passengers will not have their smartphones inspected at airports. However, a diplomatic source in Beijing noted that authorities’ explanations have not sufficiently clarified what qualifies as spying activities.
Last week, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council upgraded its travel warning for mainland China, advising against unnecessary trips due to Beijing’s recent tightening of regulations aimed at safeguarding national security.
In May, China implemented a revised law on safeguarding state secrets, which includes measures to enhance the management of secrets at military facilities.
The CCP is growing more paranoid.
Bringing your real phone instead of a burner phone into the PRC is just asking for your shit to get stolen. I have never brought my real phone into the PRC.
Love to live in a country where my data is always secure and my government would never try to harvest my data in bulk. Liberty! Whiskey! Sexy! USA! USA!
I legitimately can’t tell if this is satire or not. I think you’re confusing the USA with a European country that actually has data privacy and consumer protection laws.
Europe has an enormous surveillance state, increasingly modeled (and managed) by Israeli surveillance systems used in Palestine.
Germany, France, the UK, and Spain already have some of the most advanced facial recognition imagine in the world deployed in their surveillance networks.
And the EU just expanded their legal use
Maybe you’re safer from an American tech company. But not from the local police.
The worst that my country wants to do with my data is attempt to sell me shit I don’t want. (OK yeah we have one or two taboos: antisemitism and actual terrorism, but that’s about it.)
In some other countries, drawing parallels with certain emperors and certain A.A.Milne characters could cost me my freedom and possibly my life. Ain’t nothing stopping me standing outside #10 and yelling Rishi is a wanker!
The worst that my country wants to do with my data is attempt to sell me shit I don’t want.
Facial recognition technology and the growing power of artificial intelligence
In some other countries, drawing parallels with certain emperors and certain A.A.Milne characters could cost me my freedom and possibly my life.
Of course. Always in other countries. Never in mine.
Ah yes, my country also has serious problems and therefore it is not only relevant but equivalent.
Nonsense. The only problem my country has is the problem created by the evil foreigners who threaten my liberty and security from the other side of the border. We need to be protected from those evil outsiders. Therefore, I will endorse and participate in an even more invasive degree of surveillance and a more draconian degree of policing.
That’s the only way to keep the foreign bodies from infecting me and taking over. And the idea of the foreigners having any amount of power over me is significantly more frightening than the prospect of a domestic administration having unlimited authority to protect me.
Where’s the /s?
I’m not kidding, I can’t tell if you’re being sincere or sarcastic. XD
Tbh, I’m loving it. I know Poe’s Law and all that, but I think they’re just sarcastic enough I can tell, but other people with those sincere beliefs can also believe them and get caught in the trap lol.
Poe’s Law and its corrolaries are the bane of my existence. XD
It’s hard to laugh at absurdity when a not-insignificant percentage of the population genuinely believes it to be truth.
I wonder why, knowing this, one would go to China in the first place.
For the CCP arbitrary enforcement is less a risk and more a guarantee.
counterespionage law already pushed a lot business and investment away from China.
Not to mention a lot of stabbing targeting foreigners by nationalist https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-25/japanese-mother-child-attacked-with-knife-in-city-near-shanghai
I don’t understand who be interested going to China anymore
Another reason to not go to China
At some point I’m going to have to because the woman I love is from there. Probably I will need to get a burner phone for the occasion. It does seem like a beautiful country full of interesting culture. Shame about the government though.
Make sure you’re out before Canada gets into another dispute with China and they resort to hostage diplomacy again.
It really is a beautiful country with a bunch of really beautiful landscapes, but unfortunately due to their government I wouldn’t dare go to it.
Kinda like Florida, beautiful state with a bunch of beautiful beaches and fantastic weather but due to political reasons I wouldn’t dare visit.
Edit: Spleling
First, obviously this is not good. Secondly, if anyone is complaining about this from the USA, you don’t get to. CBP has the right to inspect your electronics with no questions asked by you. They have a right to make a copy of all data. They have a right to seize your electronics and decrypt them if you fail to provide the encryption pin. They have the right to compel you to unlock and decrypt your devices if it uses fingerprint or facial unlock. They have the right to revoke your residency status if you aren’t a citizen.
CBP has authority to do this at any sea, land, or air crossing. It also has the authority to do this within 100 miles of any border. That means about 70% of all Americans live their day to day lives within the scope of the exact same legislation. And yes it is used, all the time. If you think it isn’t, you’re just ignorant.
if anyone is complaining about this from the USA
Not one single comment on this post has said anything about how America does not have this issue, or America at all for that matter. In fact, the only comments that are about a country other than china (you know… the country the fucking article is about) mentions how Australia’s border/customs do the same thing.
Do you realize we are allowed to discuss and criticize things around the world whether or not America is guilty of something similar right? Is it really necessary to immediately without any prompting regurgitate an ‘AMERICA DOES IT TOO!!!’ comment on any article with negative sentiment regarding a non-American power?
Do you realize we are allowed to discuss and criticize things around the world whether or not America is guilty of something similar right?
It becomes tiresome to read “Foreign Country is doing the EVIL THING! Rally around the burn pit and lets talk about how intrinsically bad their are!” when they learned this shit by watching every other western country do it first. Just feels like another edition of American Exceptionalism and hysterical far-right xenophobia.
Probably wise for Beijing to do that
I’ve personally never done the trip to China for a lot of reasons (you know you are living your best life when a postdoc explains that you should never under any circumstances go to China because of what you have said) but do a lot of foreign travel for work:
No company should let any employee bring corporate electronics on international travel. Have burner phones and laptops that are set up to do incredibly minimal work locally (basically just have the slides… maybe) and to remote in. And work with your IT department to “randomly lock” them if a wrong password is detected in an airport or government facility.
It doesn’t matter if it is the UK asking if we want the left or right hand this time or the CCP: It is just an unnecessary risk that is easily avoided.
And then inform the traveler of whether they want to bring their personal devices or not.
It doesn’t matter if it is the UK asking if we want the left or right hand this time or the CCP
Unfortunately, there’s this baseline understanding of liberal western democracies providing security while eastern fascist dictatorships of the proletariat are looking for people to punish arbitrarily. The tolerance for British mass surveillance (some of the worst in the world) is sky high, simply because they’re doing it the white way.
The CCP are actively engaging in genocide (remember the Uyghurs? Probably shouldn’t if you don’t want to piss off the CCP) and have a long history of “reeducation” camps.
While I have very serious problems with how the majority of western nations handle immigration and human rights violations, that is more along the lines of “oh, please stop isreal. By the way, here are all those bombs you asked for. Don’t use them all on one mosque!” or actively turning people back to be executed in the horror they are running from (although, the US is doing a great job of having some stuff that looks a lot like concentration camps on the Southern border…).
But it is still night and day in terms of horror. The day is pretty shitty but the night… holy fuck.
But also? That doesn’t change anything. It is a nation’s responsibility to engage in basic espionage if only to protect its people’s interests. And governments all have the power to basically shit on a visitor’s human rights so long as they can keep the embassies from finding out. So why take any risks you don’t need to?
The CCP are actively engaging in genocide
It always gets me to see how Americans treated Afghanistan for 23 years, only to find religion when they see China doing the same Radical Islamic Extremism crack downs the Ted Cruz masterbates to in the middle of the night.
Literally right on the other side of the border! Practically the same dudes. And we outright applauded China for helping us with the genocide under Bush, when we were applauding Russia for the same shit in Chechnya no less.
But now we’re out of there, and in between kicking off massive famines and looting their Treasury, we’ve decided to care about Uyghurs now.
But it is still night and day in terms of horror.
More black and white.
It’s not called The China Man’s Burden, ffs. Who do they even think they are?
Anyway, back to explaining to Houthis why we don’t have health care by blowing up another elementary school in Yemen.
I can’t breathe from all the smokescreen.
Fake news skip the part where every state does this lol
You want every state to be able to be able to confiscate your devices?
Every country already does this, is the point… Nothing to do with what I or you want
This is the law.
I think I’m the comission of a crime possibly, sure. I’m unaware of other countries just willy-nilly snatching devices “just because”. I haven’t looked at the data recently though, you have that?
They can do it at the border or within 100 miles of it
Also, depending on how you handle your opsec with the phone, they can do it during a detention too if they trick you into opening it via pass code or force you to open with your ugly face or finger.
They can do it at the border or within 100 miles of it
Pretty sure that’s just a US thing (including declaring that international airports are “borders”). Other countries will have other laws.
Still best to bring a burner instead of your real device if you’re passing through international customs, though, even if both countries involved claim to be respectable Western democracies. Just in case.
My understanding is that if you going through customs they can do it in any jurisdiction… but you are right US is extra degenerate in its application of this law because it covers 80% of population lol since we all live 100 miles from border or airport
clever
“Raising fears”
Honestly, let’s just abandon journalism to AI since there’s obviously no point to having humans doing it.
A century ago the eunuchs run China. The secretary censors run China now, not the technocrats from the previous generation. Secrets and intrigue instead of information and openess.
So like the TSA?
I don’t understand people who downvote you. TSA does indeed the same
But the US is not an authoritarian shithole (it’s not a perfect democracy either, but it can’t be compared to the Chinese dictatorship in any way), which develops its domestic industries on industrial espionage and stolen intellectual property. Unlike… China. The TSA doesn’t get orders from the US government to steal trade secrets and other critical information from business people, in order to boost US industries.
I mean SCOTUS just made a ruling getting ready to make trump king of the US…
I wouldn’t put the US on such a pedestal
Guess who nominated these SCOTUS judges at the end of his presidency?
Um… its called checks and balances, sweetie.
The King selects the priests and the High Priest coronates the wealthiest member of the royal court to be the next king. We live in the fairest, freest, and most godly country in the world, because we adhere to the ancient edicts of our Holy Forefathers. And if you don’t like that, you’ve probably been brainwashed by the unholy barbaric savages from across the ocean.
Their Authoritarian Surveillance State
Our Robust National Security System
Seems fair to me, tbh. I wouldn’t go there without diplomatic immunity or a burner anyways.
Anybody surprised by this hasn’t passed basic world history yet…
Where do you think Americans learn about non-European countries in World History? History started with the founding of England and ended with WW2. I think we dropped a nuclear bomb on some East Asian country where all the anime comes from. But other than that, who gives a shit about Asia?
Reason 91627 why you shouldn’t go to this authoritarian shithole
Posting how much I hate authoritarian surveillance states on all my favorite NSA-infested social media accounts.
