The Provisions on Administrative Law Enforcement Procedures of Cyberspace Administration, published recently by the China Cyberspace Administration (CAC). The provisions lay out the processes for administrative oversight of legal actions taken to enforce compliance with applicable data protection and security regulations.
Additionally, the provisions outline the processes for evidence gathering and investigation by cybersecurity and IT departments and the various scenarios for handling data security and privacy violations.
The provisions also state that parties concerned must be informed of their right to request a hearing before administrative penalties are imposed by cybersecurity and information technology departments, and that request must be made within five days of receiving the notification.
The following clauses state that if a party doesn’t request a hearing within the allotted five days, that party will be deemed to have waived their right to a hearing and may be subject to:
- A substantial fine;
- Confiscation of large amounts of illegal income and large amounts of illegal property;
- Qualification level reductions and license revocations;
- Orders to halt production and to close or restrict business operations;
- Additional harsher administrative penalties; and
- Any other circumstances specified by laws, administrative regulations, or departmental rules.
Similarly, the provisions stipulate that before deciding on administrative enforcement procedures, the cybersecurity and informatisation departments must inform the parties involved of the proposed administrative enforcement decision, as well as its facts, reasons, and basis.
The provisions stipulate that parties experiencing financial difficulties may apply for an extension or make payments in instalments and that parties who fail to pay administrative fines within the allotted time will be charged an additional 3% of the total amount per day.
Additionally, during the second annual meeting of the Forum on High-Quality Development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), experts stated that China’s scientific community will expand cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative in the name of high-quality development and improving living conditions.
They also said that BRI countries could benefit from stronger international cooperation in areas like climate change, environmental protection, clean energy, the digital economy, public health, the transfer of technology, and professional training.
The Belt and Road Initiative’s proposal was made ten years ago this year. Since then, China has forged 200 BRI partnerships with 151 countries and 32 international organisations.
Since 2016, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China have issued specific guidelines and action plans to promote scientific and technological cooperation between BRI nations in fields ranging from agricultural innovation to university education.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has established ten overseas science and education centres, initiated more than one hundred research collaboration projects with BRI nations, and trained nearly five thousand high-level scientists.
Cooperation with BRI countries is currently confronted with four major obstacles: optimising top-level design and cooperation mechanisms; overcoming external disturbances such as conflicts; the social and economic gap between BRI nations; and a lack of professionals and funding to deepen cooperation.
Future BRI sci-tech cooperation should focus on enhancing innovation capacity, fostering people-to-people relations, sharing data and technology for mutual benefit, and developing clear policies to support prioritised fields to address these issues.
