Ministry of State Security of China

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• Special services of the PRC

2024: Tourists at the entrance to China begin to check mobile phones and computers

At the end of April 2024, the Ministry of State Security of China issued a decree giving the country's law enforcement agencies the right to check the electronic devices of tourists entering the Celestial Empire.

According to this document, excerpts from which are provided by the Chinese edition of CNA, Chinese border guards will check smartphones, laptops, tablets and other electronics at the border from July 1, 2024. However, local media, citing eyewitnesses, report that spot checks are already being carried out at airports in Shanghai, Shenzhen and some other cities.

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The new rules will allow the police to make inquiries, investigate people who could endanger national security, the Chinese Ministry of State Security said in a statement.

It is not specified which of the foreign tourists and in what cases can be checked, as well as how in this case the actions of Chinese law enforcement agencies will comply with the provisions of international law, by mid-May 2024.

It is clarified that such control in China was carried out earlier, but now they will be fully legalized: the law will prescribe the rules for their conduct.

Back in 2019, the Consulate General Russia in Guangzhou officially warned that the Chinese migration authorities could selectively check correspondence in instant messengers even when transiting into the country through the airports of this city.

The strengthening of inspections of tourists in China is taking place against the backdrop of an increase in tourist flows to the country. According to the National Immigration Administration of the PRC, in the first quarter of 2024, the number of foreigners who arrived in the country more than tripled compared to the first three months of 2023.^[1]

2019: Recruitment of Belgian politician to guide discussions in Europe on Chinese issues

The undercover officer had been paying and directing the far-right Belgian politician for more than three years.

Daniel Wu, a member of the Ministry of state Security's spy agency, China pushed Frank Kreielman, a former Belgian senator, to influence discussions in on To Europe issues ranging from China's "suppression of democracy in" to the persecution of Hong Kong Uighurs in Xinjiang.

The relationship between the Chinese officer and his Belgian agent is documented in text messages from 2019 to the end of 2022, which were obtained from a Western security source in a joint investigation by the Financial Times, Der Spiegel and Le Monde.

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