People's Republic of China

There are limited rights to privacy in the Chinese Constitution. Article 38 states that the personal dignity of citizens of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is inviolable and that insult, libel, false accusation or false incrimination directed against citizens by any means is prohibited.[1] Articles 37 and 39 define, respectively, the protection of freedom of the person and the residence. Article 40 provides for the freedom and privacy of correspondence of the citizen.[2]

Despite these provisions and those set out in more detailed laws, the Chinese government itself admits that it has room for improvement in applying any laws fairly and systematically. "The Chinese society is now in the process of transition from too much emphasis on the rule of person and insufficient emphasis on the rule of law to establishing concept of the rule of law, from supremacy of the power to supremacy of the law."[3] The annual report of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China for 2002 described the problem more bluntly: "An evaluation of human rights and the rule of law in China reveal a complex picture of contradictory trends and isolated improvements, overshadowed by the Chinese government's persistent violations of fundamental, internationally recognized human rights."[4] In 2003, the Commission found that although some human rights developments are underway in China, "these changes have been incremental, and their overall impact has been limited."[5]

China's General Principles of Criminal Law include Article 252, which states that "[t]hose infringing upon the citizen's right of communication freedom by hiding, destroying, or illegally opening others' letters, if the case is serious, are to be sentenced to one year or less in prison or put under criminal detention."[6] Article 245 also provides that "[t]hose illegally physically searching others or illegally searching others' residences, or those illegally intruding into others' residences, are to be sentenced to three years or fewer in prison, or put under criminal detention."[7]

However, law enforcement officials can issue search warrants on their own authority or else simply ignore legal requirements for independent oversight.[8] "During the year, authorities monitored telephone conversations, facsimile transmissions, e-mail, text-messaging, and Internet communications. Authorities also opened and censored domestic and international mail. The security services routinely monitored and entered residences and offices to gain access to computers, telephones, and fax machines. All major hotels had a sizable internal security presence, and hotel guestrooms were sometimes searched for sensitive materials."[9]

Article 101 of the General Principles of Civil Law (1986) provides a "right of reputation" to citizens and corporations, stating "[t]he personality of citizens shall be protected by law, and the use of insults, libel or other means to damage the reputation of citizens or legal persons shall be prohibited."[10] Article 246 of the provides a further basis for the protection of the right, stating "[t]hose openly insulting others using force or other methods or those fabricating stories to slander others, if the case is serious, are to be sentenced to three years or fewer in prison, put under criminal detention or surveillance, or deprived of their political rights."[11]

In 1988 and 1992, as the result of "invasion of privacy" litigation, many journalists were imprisoned. This stimulated much academic and public debate on such issues as the role of journalism in matters of public interest, the proper balance between the right to privacy and the right to know, the appropriate ethical norms that should govern the conduct of the journalist and the freedom of the press. Some judicial decisions during this period emphasized these debates; for example, Two Art Models v. The Organizers of the Exhibition and The Rock 'n' Roll Star Cui Jian v. The Writer Zhao Jianwei and his Publisher.[12]

The Law on the Protection of Minors (1991) provides that "no organization or individual may disclose the personal secrets of minors" and "with regard to cases involving crimes committed by minors, the names, home addresses and photos of such minors as well as other information which can be used to deduce who they are, may not be disclosed, before the judgment, in news reports, films, television programs and in any other openly circulated publications."[13] The Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women (1992) provides that "women's right of reputation and personal dignity shall be protected by law. Damage to women's right of reputation and personal dignity by such means as insult, libel or giving publicity to private affairs shall be prohibited."[14] The Law on Lawyers (1996) requires lawyers to protect the personal secrets of their clients;[15] the Law on Statistics (1983) provides that data collected from investigations shall not be disclosed without the consent of data subjects;[16] and, the Provisional Regulations Relating to Bank Management (1986) provide that all information concerning the savings of clients shall not be disclosed.[17]

These provisions taken together provide a minimum level of protection for the privacy of the citizen. However, in practice there has been a degree of confusion in applying these provisions cases concerning privacy. Consequently, the Supreme People's Court has issued two general judicial interpretations regarding the application of The General Principles of Civil Law to privacy. In Opinions on Several Questions concerning the Implementation of the "General Principles of Civil Law of the PRC" (1998) the Court held:

The cases in which a person discloses personal secrets in written or oral way, or fabricates facts to publicly vilify the personal dignity, or damages the reputation by such means as insults and defamation of the others, and these acts have caused a certain negative impact on the persons concerned, shall be treated as an invasion of the right of reputation.[18]

More recently, in the case Yu Meifang v. Xinzhou Prefectural People's Hospital, the Xinzhou Intermediate People's Court of Shanxi Province ordered the defendant hospital to pay Yu CNY 20,000 (~USD 2,400) in compensation for the anguish and humiliation she experienced when the hospital released false information about her medical condition.[19] In February 2000, Yu had gone to the orthopedics section of the hospital for treatment. A doctor from the hospital tested her blood and suspected her of being HIV-positive. The hospital separated her from other patients immediately and informed both the Xinzhou Epidemic Prevention Station and the shopping center where Yu worked that she was infected with HIV. The shopping center subsequently refused to rent her retail space, and her business partner severed their partnership.

The Practicing Physician Law requires that doctors not reveal health information obtained during treatment. Doctors who violate the law face criminal penalties. In May 1999, the Ministry of Health, with the approval of the State Council, published an administrative order declaring that personal information about HIV/AIDS sufferers be kept secret and that the legal rights and interests of those people and their relatives should not be infringed. The Ministry of Health order asked all units and individuals in charge of diagnosis, treatment, and management work not to publish any personal information about HIV/AIDS sufferers such as the name and the family address. In 2001, Ministry of Health officials again called for more attention to the protection of the right to privacy of HIV/AIDS patients, following a court ruling that a hospital damaged a patient's reputation by releasing false HIV-related information about her.[20]

The Maternal and Child Health Care Law requires premarital and prenatal examinations to determine whether couples have acute infectious diseases or certain mental illnesses (not including mental retardation) or are at risk for passing on debilitating genetic diseases. Based on medical advice, the Ministry of Health can recommend sterilization or abortion. At least five provincial governments have implemented local regulations seeking to prevent persons with severe mental disabilities from having children.[21] In August 1998, the government issued an "explanation" to provincial governments clarifying that no sterilization of persons with genetic conditions could be performed without their signed consent. In practice, most areas still do not have the capacity to determine accurately the likelihood of passing on debilitating genetic diseases.

In 2002, the China Psychiatric Association ceased listing homosexuality as a mental illness. Many gays and lesbians saw the move as a sign of increased government tolerance. Nonetheless, most gatherings of gays and lesbians still take place clandestinely.[22]

There is no general data-protection law in China and very few laws that limit government interference with collection, use and disclosure of personal information. Furthermore, there are no laws or regulations that limit the ability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in using and distributing personal data gathered through the Internet. China's growing interest in data privacy protection may be gleaned from its participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APEC) privacy initiative. In February 2003, the APEC Data Privacy Subgroup was established under the auspices of the Electronic Commerce Steering Group (ECSG) with the mandate to develop the APEC Privacy Framework.[23] All 21 member economies are represented on the ECSG and 11 economies participate in the Privacy Subgroup. China is a co-vice chair of the ECSG, a member of the Privacy Subgroup, and is continuing work on the Privacy Framework during 2004. Supporters of the initiative praise the multinational effort to establish common data privacy principles while others express concern that an APEC standard could erode stronger privacy protections in certain regions.

Article 6 of the Postal Law prohibits postal enterprises and staff from providing information to any organization or individual about users' dealings with postal services except as otherwise provided for by law.[24] However, Article 21 permits postal staff to examine on the spot the contents of "non-letter postal materials." Mail handed in or posted by users must be in accordance with the stipulations concerning the content allowed to be posted; postal authorities have the right to examine mail, when necessary.[25] However, in an age when e-mail is replacing letters as the preferred mode of written communication, China continues to ramp up massive and systematic surveillance of electronic communications.

Business travelers in China carrying laptops with "ordinary business software" are no longer required to register with the government, even if their computers have software with encryption capabilities, as they would have been under an unpopular regulation that the government reversed.[26] Chinese law now only requires that certain special hardware and software products, primarily used for encryption, be registered with the government. Beijing, under pressure from the international community, also reversed a law requiring foreign businesses to register the keys to their encryption software or devices.

China has had a long-standing policy – dating back to the 4th Century B.C. – of keeping close track of its citizens. Even in those early times, many Chinese provinces were often remarkably successful in keeping records of their whole populations, so that they could be taxed and conscripted: "The state had the surname, personal name, age and home place of every subject and was also able to ensure that nobody could move far from home without proper authorization."[27]

Freedom of association remains tightly controlled. All social organizations – from book clubs to congregations and visiting relatives – must be reported and registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Any group that operates without registering risks prosecution.[28] Failure to notify local authorities concerning visiting guests is also punishable by fine.[29] Labor unions remain illegal.[30] Government authorities systematically monitor[31] some individuals and groups more closely than others, including advocates of democratic reform,[32] human rights activists,[33] minorities,[34] and members of Falun Gong.[35]

The Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe; however, the government seeks to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of the activity of religious groups.[36] There are five officially recognized religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. For each faith, there is a government-affiliated association to monitor and supervise its activities.[37] In 2003, a significant number of Christian, Muslim, and Tibetan Buddhist worshippers were arrested or detained.[38] In June 2004, after the arrest of three bishops, the Vatican accused China of violating the right to religious freedom.[39]

In late 2000, six million census takers attempted an accurate count of the number of Chinese citizens in the fifth ever national census, but privacy and economic concerns made citizens less cooperative than in the past. Zhang Weimin, a statistician at China's National Statistics Bureau, noted that "under the planned economy, people had no privacy. Everybody's income was the same across the country. But now [China has] a market economy, and people want to protect their secrets," adding that cooperation "will not be as good as before."[40]

An estimated five million children go unreported because of China's "one-child policy," under which authorities heavily fine parents who have more than one child, subject to some exceptions. In the recent census, enumerators were so concerned with accuracy that they promised not to divulge census results to the police, the family planning commission or any other state organization. They also promised to burn the paper results once computer data entry was complete, in order to ease the fears that these records would be used for other purposes.[41]

Since 1985, all Chinese citizens over the age of 16 have been required to carry identification cards issued by the Ministry for Public Security. Identification cards include name, sex, nationality, date of birth, address and the expiry date, which varies depending on the age of the cardholder. A new law regulating the use of identification cards, the Law of Citizen Identification Cards, went into effect on January 1, 2004.[42] The new law stipulates that no organization or individual has the right to check or hold a citizen's ID card except for the police who are required to keep confidential any personal information obtained from the ID cards. However, public security agencies have the right to demand the production of identification at any time.[43] Failure to register for an identification card, forging or otherwise altering a residence registration, or assuming another person's registration are all prohibited by law and punishable by fine.

The US State Department reports that China's national identification system is being liberalized and the ability of most citizens to move around the country to live and work continues to improve.[44] Authorities have retained the ability to restrict freedom of movement through other mechanisms, and increased restrictions on movement during the year, particularly during politically sensitive anniversaries and to forestall Falun Gong demonstrations.[45]

Smart-card development is well under way in China, with both domestic and international companies competing to develop chips and modules to meet design and regulatory specifications.[46] In 2001, the city of Shanghai adopted a smart social security card designed to hold driving licenses, passports and even marriage registration. Currently, over five million Shanghai residents have applied for the card and the government hopes that most Shanghai citizens will be using the card shortly. The information on the card comes from, and can be verified by, social security, police, medical insurers, public housing and other local authorities.[47] Critics fear that government-issued smart cards will be used by the police to monitor citizen's activities, such as with the new Shanghai regulations that require Internet cyber café customers to use swipe cards that allow administrators or others to record their national identity numbers and track their Internet use.[48]

It is well documented that the Chinese government is committed to monitoring media – online and in more traditional channels – for information that might harm unification of the country, endanger national security, or subvert government authority.[49] In February 1999, the government announced the creation of the State Information Security Appraisal and Identification Management Committee that "will be responsible for protecting government and commercial confidential files on the Internet, identifying any net user, and defining rights and responsibilities. . . . [t]he move is intended to guard both individual and government users, protect information by monitoring and keep them from being used without proper authorization."[50]

In addition to Internet filters, which are dynamically updated and block sites on topics ranging from politics to religion to entertainment, the government monitors discussion forums in real time.[51] A recent study documented in detail government monitoring and censorship of discussion forums, where controversial postings are removed within minutes or hours.[52] Both the study and other commentators question how long it will be possible to maintain such labor-intensive controls as Internet use increases in China.[53]

In October 2000, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) promulgated the Internet Information Services Regulations aimed at controlling Internet usage. Promoting "evil cults" was prohibited, as was providing information that "disturbs social order or undermines social stability." One regulation, covering chat rooms, requires all service providers to monitor content and restrict controversial topics. Content providers must keep files of what they post and who reads it, for 60 days. Other regulations make it illegal to store, process, or retrieve information deemed to be "state secrets" from international computer networks. Authorities do not consider persons who receive dissident e-mail publications responsible, but forwarding those messages to others is illegal.[54]

Another provision of the regulations requires Internet café patrons to register with "software managers" and produce a valid ID card to log on.[55] The English chat room of sohu.com, partly owned by Dow Jones & Company, Inc., posted a list of prohibited topics including criticism of China's Constitution, topics which damage China's reputation, discussion that undermines China's religious policy, and "any discussion and promotion of content which PRC laws prohibit." The posting continues: "If you are a Chinese national and willingly choose to break these laws, sohu.com is legally obligated to report you to the Public Security Bureau."

As signatories to the "Internet News Information Service Self-Discipline Pledge" of December 2003, major Chinese online news and information providers, including the largest web sites sohu.com and sina.com.cn, agreed to cooperate with the authorities to regulate the Internet and "resist firmly the transmission of information that violates the fine cultural traditions and moral codes of the Chinese nation."[56] A similar statement was signed in March 2002 by over 300 companies offering Internet-related services in China. International signatories of the pledge ("not to produce or disseminate news . . . likely to jeopardize national security or social stability") include Yahoo!, which provides email services to many of China's estimated 80 million Internet users.[57]

Article 7 of the Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection and Management Regulations states "the freedom and privacy of network users is protected by law. No unit or individual may, in violation of these regulations, use the Internet to violate the freedom and privacy of network users."[58] However, Articles 8, 10 and 13 stipulate that individuals must be registered, that transferring accounts is prohibited and all those engaged in Internet business are subject to security supervision, inspection, and guidance, including assisting in incidents involving law violations and criminal activities involving computer information networks."[59] Articles 285 to 287 of the criminal code make unauthorized intrusions into computer systems illegal.[60]

By law, all Internet cafés must be licensed. However, due to the labyrinthine licensing requirements and registration – for both the operator and the user – and high demand, it is estimated that more than 60 per cent of China's 200,000 plus Internet cafés remain unlicensed. Licensed cyber cafés require patrons to provide identification and register each time they visit. It is unsurprising that a significant percentage of China's Internet users log on – using prepaid, anonymous phone cards – through unlicensed cyber cafés.[61] These cafés offer inexpensive access and an unregulated degree of freedom that might not otherwise be possible.[62]

In 2001, more than 1,700 Internet cafés in Chongqing began operating "security management" software distributed by the local bureau of public security. The program filters materials deemed to be objectionable by the government and is capable of "capturing" computer screens and "casting" them onto screens at local public security bureaus.[63] The product was designed in part to keep "unhealthy" information, such as cults, sex, and violence, off the Internet. Local police departments stated that strengthening the administration and control over the Internet cafés would benefit the healthy development of this fledgling industry.

In April 2001, the State Council ordered a three-month investigation into all public Internet service providers and announced that no new Internet cafés could be opened during that time. By June 2001, the Shenzhen Legal Daily reported that Chinese police had inspected over 56,800 cafés. Over 6,000 of these were disconnected and 2,300 shut down completely.[64] The Shanghai Daily said the move was China's second major clampdown in a little more than a year. In May 2002, a devastating fire in an unlicensed café killed 25 people and prompted another nationwide crackdown.[65]

In June 2003, China began to license Internet café "chains" that would serve as an alternative to the privately held cafés that were the target of previous crackdowns.[66] This has been widely viewed as an attempt to promote consolidation in to the hands of fewer, larger, easier-to-control organizations. The Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese state news agency, reported that the government shut down 8,600 "illegal" Internet cafés between March and April 2004.[67] In Fall 2004, the government announced that it was implementing an "Internet cafe technology management system" to cover the entire nation by 2005.[68]

The monitoring of Internet activity has led to numerous arrests and long jail sentences for online activists. According to Reporters Without Borders, roughly 30,000 Chinese are employed maintaining China's Internet monitoring services and more than 36 individuals are in prison for expressing their views on the Internet.[69] However, despite near-constant government monitoring and filtering, China's Internet usage continues to surge. Government statistics cite 80 million regular Internet users as of December 2003, up 20 million from 2002.[70]

The crackdown on Internet dissidents has gained speed recently. In 2003, China saw a 60 percent increase in the number of people detained or sentenced for Internet-related offences.[71] In February 2003, an Internet critic of the government, Tao Haidong, was sentenced to seven years in prison.[72] Sichuan website manager Huang Qi, founder of a site for missing persons from the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, was sentenced to five years in prison.[73] In May 2003, four student activists who posted essays critical of the government were given prison sentences of up to 10 years for subversion.[74] Internet essayist Luo Yongzhong was sentenced to three years in prison after publishing articles on overseas websites calling for democracy and human rights.[75] Reporters Without Borders named China "the biggest jail in the world for cyber dissidents," stating that the country has jailed 48 persons for their Internet writing in recent years.

In 2004, surveillance of electronic communications, and detentions for Internet-related offenses continued to rise, partly in anticipation of the 15th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4, 2004. In March 2004, Chinese dissident Ma Yalian was sentenced to 18 months in a "Re-education Through Labor" camp for posting an article to two Chinese web sites reporting police harassment and abuse of several Chinese petitioners.[76] Reporters Without Borders described the May 2004 trial of Chinese dissident Du Daobin, who was arrested for posting pro-democracy articles to the Internet, as "shocking," noting that he was denied access to his attorney and forced to plead guilty. In June 2004, after the case drew sharp criticism from human rights groups and served as a rallying cry for China's growing number of online commentators, a Chinese court announced that Du Daobin would get a suspended sentence instead of a long prison term.[77]

In China and abroad, some commentators quickly applauded what seemed like an official show of leniency toward Du Daobin, a prolific author of online essays on issues of democracy and free speech.[78] The number of bloggers in China has grown from a few thousand in 2002 to anywhere from 100,000 to half a million in 2004. In March 2004, the government temporarily shut down four leading blogging sites – Blogbus.com, Blogcn.com, Blogdriver.com and Typepad – for allowing politically sensitive content to be posted.

Throughout the inspections and closures, authorities have given various rationales for their methods, from protecting youth from corruption on the Internet, to public safety. Ultimately, the closure or increased regulation of cybercafés – for any reason – impacts the ability of average Chinese, particularly students, from access to foreign news sources and denies them a degree of expression they do not otherwise enjoy.

China's Internet regulations and legislation are guided by the principle of "guarded openness" – seeking to preserve the economic benefits of new information and communication technologies, while guarding against foreign economic domination and the use of technology to coordinate anti-government activity.[79] According to Human Rights Watch, China has enacted at least 60 sets of regulations aimed at controlling Internet content – or access to content outside of China – since commercial Internet accounts were first authorized in 1994.[80]

Using technological assistance and equipment from Western companies such as Nortel Networks and IBM, China's Ministry for Public Security (MPS) passes all international connections through proxy servers at official gateways, where MPS officials identify individual users and content, define rights, and carefully monitor network traffic into and out of the country.[81] Derisively termed the "Great Firewall" by hacktivists and journalists worldwide, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) also uses the firewall to periodically filter access to Western web sites, particularly media organizations, such as the Washington Post and Voice of America,[82] human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, or any other web site deemed subversive.[83] Recently, the government has taken public steps to relax filtering on a case-by-case basis.[84]

The pace and scale of the development of the Internet has reduced the significance of the Great Firewall. Economic modernization is leading to exponential growth in the demand for international bandwidth and the sheer volume of Internet traffic today poses a serious challenge to state control at the network level. China observers hold out the existence of many anti-government postings on the Internet as evidence that censorship regulations are inconsistently enforced. Further, data from a 2001 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) survey on Internet use shows that 10 per cent of users admit to regularly using, and 25 percent occasionally using, proxy servers to defeat censorship measures.[85] However, heavy restrictions on international connectivity remain a key principle in China's nascent Internet security strategy and penalties for Internet-related offences include life imprisonment or the death penalty.

At a recent security industry conference, the PRC government announced an ambitious successor to its Great Firewall strategy. Rather than relying solely on a national intranet, separated from the global Internet by a massive firewall, China will now build surveillance intelligence into the network, allowing it to "see," "hear" and "think."[86] Content-filtration will shift from the national level to millions of digital information and communications devices in public places and people's homes.[87] This project is dubbed the "Golden Shield."

The technology behind Golden Shield is complex and is based on research developed largely by Western technology firms, including Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems and others. The Golden Shield efforts do not signal an abandonment of other avenues of access and content control. For example, details are only beginning to emerge about a new "black box" device, derived from technology previously used in airline cockpit data recorders, and broadly similar to the Carnivore system developed by the US government.[88] Once attached to a server at the ISP, Carnivore works by intercepting all incoming transmissions and then parsing out pertinent material, based on keywords provided by the administrator. Chinese Internet police would use the black box technology to monitor dissidents and collect evidence on illegal activities.[89] Human rights advocates express concern that the Golden Shield project combines Internet filtering with others forms of surveillance technology, such as cameras with face-recognition software, fingerprint databases, and speech-recognition software to monitor telephone conversations, and may be used to create a computerized national network of citizens in the future.[90]

Chinese authorities are increasingly making use of technology to control the circulation of news and information. After text messages helped to expose the national cover-up of the SARS health crisis in May 2003, the Public Security Ministry granted permission to a technology firm, Venus Info Tech, to market surveillance software for text messages to service providers.[91] The technology, based on filtering algorithms created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, enables service providers to monitor and block messages that contain keywords that authorities consider suspicious.[92]

 

According to China Telecom, China's nearly 300 million mobile phone users sent 220 billion text messages in 2003. In May 2004, the government announced that it would begin screening all mobile phone messages in order to protect the morality of the country's youth. In June 2004, China began filtering billions of mobile phone messages to ensure that people do not use text communications tools to undermine the one-party rule.[93] During the first week of government inspections in June 2004, the government fined 10 text-message service providers and forced 20 others to shut down for not properly policing messages passing through their communications systems. On July 1, 2004, Reporters Without Borders criticized the new surveillance system stating, "the Chinese authorities are making ever greater use of new technology to control the circulation of news and information. In the past months we have been witnessing a real downturn in press freedom particularly on the Internet."[94] Human rights organizations have also expressed concern that the surveillance tool could be exported at a low cost to additional countries.

The Internet Society of China, a Beijing trade association, reported in March that China received 46 billion junk e-mails – 30 percent of all e-mail – in 2003, making it second to the US in spam receipt. Also, six percent of the Chinese population is reportedly online. China has no spam laws.[95] Another group, the China Internet Network Information Center, also reported that 6.2 percent of the country was online – 80 million Chinese – which is up 35 percent from 2002. The group noted that there were just 620,000 Chinese Web users six years ago. 70 percent of Chinese Web users are under 30.[96]

In February, the Chinese Ministries of Public Security, Education and Information Industry announced an effort to combat servers that send "junk e-mail that is reactionary, pornographic, involves gambling, or spreads computer viruses or other damaging content," and that the government was also considering anti-spam legislation.[97] Early in March, National People's Congress deputies proposed anti-spam laws, but no legislation was passed.

In the wake of criticism over the Chinese government's handling of the 2003 SARS crisis, the Chinese State Council recently began work on a draft of China's first freedom of information legislation. The drafting of a national law on open government information has been placed on the National People's Congress legislative agenda for the current session running through 2007.

On January 20, 2004, Shanghai, home to 16 million people, adopted The Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Open Government Information – China's first provincial-level open information legislation, which could "represent the most comprehensive framework to date in China for accessing government-held information."[98] The Shanghai Provisions provide that citizens, legal persons and other organizations have the right to request "government information" from government agencies, including information about individuals themselves.[99] Furthermore, the law imposes a legal obligation on government agencies to disclose information that is not covered by six exemptions for information.[100] Although it remains to be seen how widely the exemptions will be interpreted, the new legislation is significant not only for advancing the concept of open government information in China, but also because of the inclusive process – that included posting a draft for public comment – by which the Shanghai Provisions were formulated.

On February 28, 2002, China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights but took a reservation on the right to freely organize and join trade unions. China still has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which its government signed in 1998.