China Using US Encryption Fight To Defend Its New Encryption Backdoor Mandate

It's not like this wasn't easy to predict (because we did exactly that), but as China is pushing forward with its new "anti-terrorism" law, it's using the US's fight over encryption as a reason for why the law shouldn't be a problem. Part of the law would require that companies backdoor any encryption for the Chinese government:

The initial draft, published by parliament late last year, requires companies to keep servers and user data within China, supply law enforcement authorities with communications records and censor terrorism-related Internet content.

China has said many Western governments, including the United States, have made similar requests for encryption keys, and Chinese companies operating in the United States had been subject to intense security checks.

Again, this is hardly surprising, but with all of these politicians demanding backdoors, or other surveillance techniques, have any of them stopped to consider the message being sent to other governments around the globe? Either way, the bill has now been approved by the Chinese Parliament. And, again, the Chinese government is pointing to other countries as to why it's no big deal:

Speaking after China's largely rubber-stamp parliament passed the law, Li Shouwei, deputy head of the parliament's criminal law division under the legislative affairs committee, said China was simply doing what other Western nations already do in asking technology firms to help fight terror.

"This rule accords with the actual work need of fighting terrorism and is basically the same as what other major countries in the world do," Li told reporters.

So, again, to all the politicians and lawmakers supporting backdooring encryption, what's your response when China uses it to say that's why they're doing it as well?

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