Experts argue that the law forces Chinese telecommunications companies with operations overseas such as
Huawei to hand over data to Chinese government regardless of which country that data came from. To counteract perceived concerns, Huawei, in May 2018, submitted legal opinion by Chinese law firm
Zhong Lun, which among other things stated that "Huawei’s subsidiaries and employees outside of China are not subject to the territorial jurisdiction of the National Intelligence Law". A 2019 report by Sweden-based law firm Mannheimer Swartling concluded that "NIL applies to all Chinese citizens", and even overseas subsidiaries of global Chinese companies "could be subject to NIL". However, the report also stated that it was "based on an objective reading of an English version of NIL" and "not construed to interpret NIL under the Chinese domestic legal system" but rather its "applicability to multinational companies based on a literal reading of certain provisions of NIL and interpreting those provisions based on principles of public international law". Writing for China Law Translate in 2024, Jeremy Daum stated that "it is far from clear that it [Article 7 of the NIL] was ever intended to require active participation in information gathering or sharing". He stated that the provision lacked an enforcement mechanism and that penalties could only be applied when intelligence work was “obstructed” and that such work had to be conducted “in accordance with law” - which might include other legislation such as the
PIPL. He further stated that “intelligence” was left undefined in the text, and that the "strongest indication of the focus of “intelligence work” is probably Article 11, which describes the “intelligence information” that should be collected by the authorities. It describes the information as (1) about
conduct endangering national security or interests (2) that is carried out by, at the direction of, or in collusion with
foreign groups, and (3) collected for the
purpose of stopping, preventing, or punishing that conduct.". Nevertheless, he stated that none of this precluded or hindered the ability of the Government of China to conduct espionage efforts and that direct requests from law enforcement or security would still be difficult to resist meaningfully. The
CLOUD Act, enacted the following year, has been viewed as a US parallel to this law. == See also ==