Several government branches in Guangdong Province and other regions have recently required Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members and officials to report activities on the WeChat groups that they are affiliated with, including the content of images, texts, and videos.

Two images circulating on Twitter and WeChat show the cover of a “Personal WeChat Group Registration and Reporting Form” printed in April by the Guangdong Provincial CCP Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Guangdong Provincial Supervision Commission .

One of the attachments to the WeChat Group Registration and Reporting Form, entitled Attachment 4, “Self-Examination Table for the Purification of Moments,” lists seven items that need to be reported promptly, including distorting, negating, and attacking the Party’s and China’s’ National history; vilifying and slandering party leaders and heroic models; advocating Western “constitutional democracy,” “universal values,” and human rights issues; questioning the achievements of poverty alleviation; spreading pessimistic views regarding topics such as employment, housing, education, and the polarization of rich and poor; and attacks and slander against the effectiveness, safety, and fairness of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.

On September 5, 2019, a university in Hubei Province required teachers and students to register in WeChat groups across the provinces. On March 28 last year, the Wuhan City’s Confidentiality Bureau issued a “Notice on Confidentiality Management of WeChat Work Groups in Government Agencies and Units,” which requires government branches to establish WeChat groups only after obtaining approval. “An application must be submitted as per the work needs, specifying the purpose, time of establishment, and responsible person.” The group leader is then determined as the group administrator and has to sign the “WeChat Group Administrator Confidential Responsibility Statement.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 9, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/gt2-05092023034525.html

China passed a new Anti-Espionage Law on April 26, which will be enforced on July 1. Epoch Times published an article to analyze the law.

Article 4 defined what is counted as espionage activity. Item 3 broadened it to include “activities conducted, or instructed or financed to be conducted by others, by foreign agencies, organizations, and individuals other than spy organizations and their agents, and activities conducted by domestic agencies, organizations, or individuals in collusion with them, to steal, spy, buy, illegally possess state secrets, intelligence, as well as documents, data, information, and items related to national security and interests, or to instigate, induce, coerce, or buy state employees to mutiny.” This opens the door for the government to claim any foreign organization, company, or individual’s action as spy work.

Article 14 defined “No individual or organization may illegally obtain or hold documents, data, information, or items that are state secrets.” Article 38 defines the authority to interpret “state secrets” is vested in the “confidential department of the state, or the confidential departments of a province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government.”

The law also gives the law enforcement agency great power in searching and investigation. Article 24 defined that “State security organs when carrying out the counter-espionage task can show their identify card, and then check the identity card of Chinese citizens or foreign personnel, inquire the relevant individuals and organizations, and inspect the accompanying items of any identity-unknown or suspected individual.” Also, Article 26 and 27 defined that with a district-level (lower than a city) approval, the security staff can search individual’s or organization’s electronic equipment, documents, data, materials, and items.

Sources:
1. China’s government site, April 27, 2023
http://www.gov.cn/yaowen/2023-04/27/content_5753385.htm
2. Epoch Times, May 1, 2023
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/23/5/1/n13985487.htm