China defends draft counter-terrorism law

BEIJING

China has defended a proposed counter-terrorism law over which U.S. President Barack Obama expressed concern, insisting that an article on technology firms would only be used in preventing and investigating “terrorist” activities.

Fu Ying, National People's Congress spokesperson, told a press conference Wednesday that Washington should first guarantee that it entirely understands what the draft law would entail.

"We advocate a dialogue and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect in the regard of cyberspace," state news agency Xinhua quoted her as saying.

"There should be no 'double standard' in establishing the universal Internet regulation rules."

Under the draft legislation, technology firms would have to supply Chinese authorities with surveillance access and encryption keys, and to keep servers and user data within the country.

Stressing that only China's public security and national security organs could use such information after strict approval procedures, Fu added that requesting such disclosures was also common practice in Western countries, such as the U.S. and Britain.

She assured that the legal interests of Internet business practitioners would not be affected, and said, "we hope that the foreign companies in China can continue to support and participate in China's reforms."

Following Obama’s comments, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that the law was “China's internal matter.”

The China Daily quoted Hua Chunying saying, “we hope the U.S. can calmly and objectively handle it."

A second draft of the law was studied by China's parliamentary body last week and is expected to be passed in the coming weeks or months.