Top legislature to review bills on patriotic education, safeguarding national secrets

Photo taken on March 5, 2022 shows a view of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China. Photo: Xinhua

The sixth session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) will review several draft bills, including ones on the patriotic education law and the law on safeguarding national secrets.

According to Yang Heqing, a spokesperson from the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee on Thursday, the sixth session of the Standing Committee of the 14th NPC is expected to convene from Friday till Tuesday in Beijing.

The draft bill on patriotic education will undergo its second review during the meeting. The amendments proposed for this review will focus on enriching patriotic education, promoting the inheritance and development of traditional Chinese culture, strengthening cultural self-confidence, and improving the provisions on patriotic education in schools.

The legislation of the patriotism education law aims to combine and condense some scattered content about patriotic education in different laws and regulations and promote patriotic education in the new era with a systematic, standard and scientific legislation process, Zhi Zhenfeng, a research fellow at the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The draft on patriotic education is to educate and guide citizens to consciously fulfill their obligations to maintain national unity and ethnic solidarity, safeguard national security, honor and interests, so as to ensure the long-term stability of the country, according to Yang Heqing, a spokesperson from the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee, on Thursday.

In terms of educational methods to boost the public's sense of patriotism, emphasis is placed on fully utilizing the educational function of cultural relics, cultural heritage, various museums, memorial halls, and organizing folk cultural activities during traditional festivals, Yang said.

Some people who smear heroes and martyrs, and the uncivilized behaviors that go against the principles and spirit of patriotism will also be a focal point of patriotic education, Zhi said.

In order to address the current situation regarding the safeguarding of national secrets, the Standing Committee meeting will also hear the revision of the law on safeguarding national secrets. This law was first enacted in 1988 and underwent its first revision in 2010. The proposed revision will include provisions to implement the Party's leadership on national secrets, optimize the management systems of national secrets, further detail principles of encryption and decryption, and strengthen supervision on safeguarding national secrets.

Attaching importance to confidentiality is a fine tradition of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In face of new challenges, strengthening the Party's leadership on national secrets is of great significance to safeguarding national security and interests,

Li Baiyang, an assistant professor from the data management innovation research center of Nanjing University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The circulation of information has given rise to new forms of spying such as phishing, cyber information leakage, illegal cross-border transmission of data, gray asset trading, and illegal crawlers. With the promulgation of the National Security Law and the revision of the Counterespionage Law, timely revision of the law on national secrets can provide practical behavioral guidelines and a legal basis for practical work in safeguarding national security and interests, Li noted.

In addition to the bills on patriotic education and safeguarding national secrets, the meeting will also review drafts on the revision of the Marine Environmental Protection Law and the Charity Law. The motion for a revision of the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases Law will also be reviewed.

The draft revision on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases Law will focus on optimizing mechanisms to cope with infectious diseases, improving the early warning system, and enhancing medical treatment mechanisms.