China's new law provides legal basis for deployment abroad

BEIJING: Under the law adopted by China's National People's Congress (NPC) on July 3, the military can get involved in international military security cooperation, including UN peacekeeping operations, relief and rescue and other missions to protect China's overseas interests.

Chinese military is already taking part in UN peacekeeping missions including the anti-piracy operations in Gulf of Aden.

Analysts say while it has no overseas military bases, the new law for the first time provides legal cover for its deployment abroad to protect Chinese interests.

Chinese officials defend such a law as the country expands its global reach with over 100 million of its tourists travelling abroad annually and its overseas investments crossing over USD 100 billion.

This is the first time that such provisions have been included in Chinese law, an unidentified official with the legislative affairs bureau of the Central Military Commission said in an interview with the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese military.

"The clause is not only based on our military operations, but also serves as legal ground for troops involvement in overseas missions," the official said.

"It gives a legal grounding for the army to effectively deal with multiple security threats and fulfil diversified military tasks," the official added.

In addition to military security, the new law covers a wide spectrum of areas ranging from finance to culture; outer space activities and assets; those at ocean depths and in polar regions; as well as cyberspace sovereignty.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein had recently expressed deep concerns about the human rights implications regarding the scope of a new law on national security specially in terms of rights of Chinese citizens.

The Chinese law "raises many concerns due to its extraordinarily broad scope coupled with the vagueness of its terminology and definitions," he said in statement on July 7.

"As a result, it leaves the door wide open to further restrictions on the rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens, and to even tighter control of civil society by the Chinese authorities than there is already," he said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denounced Hussein for his criticism and called his remarks amounted to interference in its internal affairs.

"We are strongly dissatisfied with the report and opposed to the statement of the UN High Commissioner who made groundless accusations against China's normal legislative action," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying has said.