“China adopted a controversial cyber security law on Monday to counter what Beijing says are growing threats such as hacking and terrorism, but the law triggered concerns among foreign business and rights groups,” Sue-Lin Wong and Michael Martina report for Reuters.
“The legislation, passed by China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament and set to take effect in June 2017, is an ‘objective need’ of China as a major internet power, a parliament official said,” Wong and Martina report. “Overseas critics of the law say it threatens to shut foreign technology companies out of various sectors deemed ‘critical,’ and includes contentious requirements for security reviews and for data to be stored on servers in China.”
“Rights advocates also say the law will enhance restrictions on China’s Internet, already subject to the world’s most sophisticated online censorship mechanism, known outside China as the Great Firewall,” Wong and Martina report. “James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, called the provisions ‘vague, ambiguous, and subject to broad interpretation by regulatory authorities.’ Human Rights Watch said elements of the law, such as criminalizing the use of the Internet to ‘damage national unity,’ would further restrict online freedom.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple wants to do business in China, they’ll have to kowtow to Chinese government demands. Apple has far, far too much invested (in capital and future hopes) to eschew China. The best course of action is to continue to doing business and work from the inside out to bolster human rights, increase wages, improve the environment and labor conditions, and bring some measure of personal privacy to the country.
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