China has revealed new comprehensive regulations to reinforce the dissemination of information about its online armed forces, a measure that can obscure important sources to monitor the world’s largest armed forces.
The rules, announced over the weekend that come into force on March 1, occur while China is rapidly building and modernizing its popular liberation army to correspond to US military power.
It also marks the latest step in leader Xi Jinping’s long -term campaign to reinforce national security and protect state secrets in the face of growing geopolitical tensions – efforts that have made it even harder for foreign observers to understand what is happening in China.
The comprehensive rules can have a major impact on Chinese military bloggers and commentators, who are usually quick to share images or information about new weapon systems, personnel nominations and troop movements.
This publicly available information posted by military enthusiasts in the country has also been an important source for Pla observers to track the development and movement of the Chinese military.
Regulations aim to address issues such as “the dissemination of false military information” and “the leak of army secrets” on the Internet, according to a government questions and answers session released by the government.
They establish strict rules for online content on military matters, prohibiting “production, copying, publication and dissemination” of military secrets, national defense technology, industry secrets or other unclogged information.
The forbidden list covers everything, from the development and testing of weapons systems to military exercises and implementation, as well as the organizational structures, tasks and combat capacities of military units that have not been officially disclosed.
Chinese Communist Party and the Army
Joseph Wen, an independent Taipei -based independent analyst who documents publicly available on the PLA, said the Chinese Communist Party in power has always been defined by a high degree of opacity.
“However, as a regime that values both secret and advertising, Chinese authorities have long adopted an approach to ‘wink and nod’ in relation to the dissemination of army-related information within domestic online communities,” he said Wen.
The new rules signal that Beijing is beginning to abandon this approach and set clear limits to “keeping secrets,” he added.
Regulations target individual users and “online military information service providers”, which include sites dedicated to military matters, military columns and social media accounts focused on military.
It is unclear how the new rules will affect foreign media reports about the Chinese military.
Analysts said the new regulations can foretell a tightening in control over military -theme content on the Chinese internet.
This content was originally published in China creates new rules on army information sharing on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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