NPC Publishes National Intelligence Law

On May 16, NPC released the National Intelligence Law (Draft) for public comments, with a deadline of June 4, 2017. The draft National Intelligence Law's main objective is to safeguard national intelligence and protect national security interests and requires all intelligence work to follow the provisions outlined in the law. This is the first time China has addressed national intelligence work at a legislation level, which brings secretive intelligence work to public. 

During an NPC meeting in March, Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, specifically called for acceleration in building a national security legal framework and pointed out that China made great progress in 2016 with the promulgation of CSL. The Draft National Intelligence Law is another addition to China's growing national security legal framework, which already includes the Anti-Espionage Law, National Security Law, Anti-Terrorism Law and Cybersecurity Law.