Amid rising tensions with the US, Beijing is taking measures to tighten its grip on sensitive data, with China restricting overseas access to Chinese data sources following concerns about reports from American research organizations, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal. Chinese authorities became worried about sensitive topics in American think-tank studies based on local open data sources, including cooperation between the military and corporations.
Such studies were conducted by organisations such as the Georgetown University Centre for Security and Emerging Technology and the Centre for a New American Security. Despite efforts by the current US administration to encourage investment in China, there is still a lack of openness and knowledge in many areas of the world’s second-largest economy.
In the past, think tanks, research organisations and consulting firms have relied on local sources for their research on Chinese topics and industries. However, Chinese businesses such as Wind Information Co. have ceased providing foreign customers with in-depth information about Chinese enterprises in recent months.
The Chinese government has targeted local offices of Bain & Co., Mintz Group, and Capvision and has approved a counter-espionage law that widens the scope of actions that can be considered as spying. Dakota Cary, a consultant at Krebs Stamos Group who previously worked for Georgetown’s CSET, called the move to limit access to data “a reckless move by China,” which will cause public discourse on China to drift further from the truth and will worsen the US-China relationship.
According to the Journal’s sources who spoke with Chinese authorities, in March, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s powerful internet censor, instructed data providers to limit access to sensitive data, including statistics and patents, from outside China.
In March, organisations were warned of impending service restrictions, including on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure academic database. The university’s library, which released an online notification, said that many content types previously regarded as mundane have now been flagged by Chinese authorities for government review.
It is not yet known how long such suspensions will last, but access will resume when Chinese publishers have met the requirements for the review of affected content types.
Beijing was particularly interested in the “Silicon Twist” report, released by CSET in June, which examined the military’s access to American-designed chips used to train artificial intelligence models. Another study from the same centre focused on how Beijing used programs to track and recruit talent worldwide to further its strategic goals.
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