Emerging sectors drive new laws, amendments

Legislative steps

During the past decade, the NPC and its standing committee have stepped up efforts to produce laws that will prevent problems in emerging industries.

For example, since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, legislators have drafted and revised more than 20 laws related to areas of nontraditional security including the cybersecurity law, the data security law, the e-commerce law and the personal information protection law.

"The new laws and amendments aim to solve fresh security problems facing the country and also form a national security legal system that suits the State's strategic security environment," said Xu Anbiao, deputy head of the NPC Standing Committee's Legislative Affairs Commission.

After many people fell victim to telecom and online fraud, legislators strengthened punishments for swindlers by revising the criminal law and also introduced the nation's first law focused on fraud-related cases.

"We've also provided heavier penalties and added new criminal charges while revising the criminal law in response to people's concerns in other fields, such as corruption, financial security, public security, food safety, environmental protection and intellectual property," Yue Zhongming, a spokesman for the commission, said.

Li, the lawyer in Liaoning, welcomed the new measures, but added that making or amending laws is a lengthy process that sometimes fails to keep pace with new issues "so solving problems involving emerging businesses presents challenges to legal practice".