China’s controversial new anti-terrorism law would require foreign companies to install “backdoors” to give authorities remote access to computers and networks, and has been placed under review due to Western concerns. Since China still has to rely on foreign technology in the immediate future, the law might have been used to tell the United States government not to engage in what Beijing called “reckless behavior,” or to further expose U.S. hypocrisy in its own cyber espionage practices.

China’s new anti-terror laws are in response to changing transnational terrorist networks and are intended to designate agencies responsible for anti-terror activities while defining the obligations of the state, society, enterprises, and individual citizens. U.S. IT companies are concerned that increased security and oversight will affect business operations, but Fu Xiaoqiang reminds that this is not unseen in U.S. law either.