China's Legal Framework and Measures for Counterterrorism

V. Effective Protection of People's Safety and National Security

China carries out counterterrorism work in accordance with the law. By balancing security and stability with social development, it continues to increase its capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and eradicate its ideological foundation. China has thus heightened the people's sense of security, defended national security, and contributed to regional and global security and stability.

– Increasing capacity to prevent and combat terrorism. On an increasingly sound legal base, China continues to improve its security management systems in relevant fields, including transport, logistics, and hazardous goods. It actively promotes improved terrorism prevention standards in key sectors and localities, formulates or revises counterterrorism contingency plans, and strengthens drills accordingly, thereby improving prevention and control to maintain public security. By encouraging and supporting scientific research and technological innovation, developing and popularizing new technical devices, and applying them to training and actual work, China continues to increase its scientific and technological capacity to counter terrorism and effectively tackles the challenges posed by new technologies and business forms, including artificial intelligence, encrypted communication, and virtual currency.

Apart from specialized efforts, China also relies on the public in working to counter terrorism. It conducts extensive public education on campuses and in workplaces and residential communities, and has distributed counterterrorism booklets such asA Citizen's Handbook on Counterterrorismto the general public. It incentivizes people to report terrorism-related activities to the authorities, and continues to improve societal awareness of public security and the public's ability to respond to emergent incidents of violence and terrorism.

Example 13 Building a System of Terrorism Prevention Standards

China is engaged in establishing standards for the prevention of terrorism in key sectors, including transport, water, electricity, oil, gas, heating, nuclear facilities, nuclear technology, media facilities, hazardous chemicals, biosecurity, and national strategic reserves. To date, the Ministry of Public Security has released 37 terrorism prevention standards for the public security sector and local authorities have issued hundreds of standards. These standards serve as the basis for establishing personnel, physical and electronic protection systems, and facilitate the synchronous design, development and operation of corresponding equipment and facilities for key targets.

– Balancing security and stability with social development. Since 2014, China has continued to take tough action against violent terrorism and punish criminals who have plotted terrorist activities. It has foiled most terrorist schemes in the making, effectively safeguarding national security and social stability, and markedly improving people's sense of security.

Counterterrorism efforts are the anchor of security and stability. Security and stability enable development, which in turn further consolidates security and stability. In Xinjiang, a key focal point for China's counterterrorism efforts, urban residents' per capita disposable income increased from RMB19,019 in 2012 to RMB38,410 in 2022, while the per capita disposable income of rural residents rose from RMB6,876 to RMB16,550. By the end of 2020, all 3.06 million individuals living in rural areas below the poverty line had emerged from poverty, and poverty had been eradicated from all 3,666 villages and 35 counties that were previously impoverished. In 2023, Xinjiang received 265.44 million tourists, representing a year-on-year increase of 117 percent and setting a new record for the number of visiting tourists. Xinjiang's total income from tourism in 2023 was RMB296.7 billion, a growth of 227 percent on the previous year. The autonomous region is now a leading tourist destination, with tourism acting as a pillar industry that boosts employment opportunities and enriches the lives of local people.

– Eradicating the ideological foundation of terrorism. While striking hard at unlawful and criminal terrorist activities, China attaches greater importance to the education and rehabilitation of victims of extremist teachings who have committed only minor offenses. For people falling under different levels of extremist influence, relevant government departments, women's associations and other social organizations, religious groups, schools, and families collaborate to offer targeted intervention measures, in order to protect them from further harmful impact.

Religious extremism is not religion. It distorts religious doctrines to spread violent and radical ideas and cause serious disruption to normal religious activities. Influenced and controlled by religious extremism, some people have engaged in, or have been instigated, coerced, or enticed to engage in terrorist activities.

Following the principles of protecting the lawful, banning the unlawful, containing extremism, resisting infiltration, and combating crimes, China protects citizens' freedom of religious belief, ensures the normal practice of religious activities, and makes consistent law-based efforts in deradicalization. It has succeeded in containing the influence and spread of religious extremism.

The public has developed a stronger awareness of the rule of law and realized the harm that religious extremism causes, while their abilities to distinguish between right and wrong, and to resist the penetration of religious extremism have greatly strengthened.

– Contributing to global and regional security and stability. By combating domestic terrorist activities, strengthening border and port of entry control, and stopping the cross-border movement of terrorists, China has effectively curbed the spread of terrorism. In accordance with its own laws and the international conventions it has entered or concluded, China actively cooperates in international counterterrorism on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. It is committed to the vision of a global community of shared future, supports the UN's leading and coordinating role in international cooperation on counterterrorism, abides by the UN Charter and other well-recognized international laws, and backs the counterterrorism resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. It has joined 12 global counterterrorism conventions and actively fulfills its obligations in fighting terrorism.

China advocates regional cooperation to counter terrorism. Under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), it has facilitated the formulation of documents such as the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism and the SCO Member States Agreement on Border Defense Cooperation, and participated in judicial cooperation and joint counterterrorism exercises, playing an important role in maintaining international and regional security and stability. By establishing cooperation mechanisms with dozens of countries and between law-enforcement departments to combat terrorism in border areas, it has engaged in pragmatic exchanges and cooperation in intelligence, border control, and investigation and handling of cases, and cut off funds for terrorism.