Our picks: China watchNew Legal Tools to Combat China Threats | Wuhan Lab COVID Escape? | Apple Using Forced Labor from Xinjiang, and more

New Anti-Spying Laws Turn Spotlight on Academics “Working for the Enemy”  (Charles Hymas, The Telegraph)
Ministers may be given civil powers to impose curbs on suspected foreign agents, even if there is not enough evidence for a prosecution.

Tougher Laws to Make Fake News a Crime  (Matt Dathan, The Times)
Spreading fake news on behalf of a hostile state like Russia or China could become a crime under government plans to overhaul the Official Secrets Act.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has published proposals to create a number of new offences to modernize Britain’s “outdated” laws to combat evolving threats.
The changes would also increase prison sentences for breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Currently only espionage carries the maximum 14-year sentence, with all other offences, including the leaking of official secrets, carrying only a two-year limit.
Sabotage, economic espionage and foreign interference are threats that need to be countered by creating new standalone offences, say the proposals.

Top Researchers Are Calling for a Real Investigation into the Origin of COVID-19  (Rowan Jacobsen, MIT Technology Review)
A group of prominent biologists say there needs to be a “safe space” for asking whether the coronavirus came out of a lab.

Wuhan Lab COVID Escape “Can’t Be Ruled Out”  (Tom Whipple, The Times)
It remains plausible that the pandemic started after the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory, a group of leading scientists has said.
In a letter in the journal Science, researchers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cambridge criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) and other scientists for dismissing such an explanation.

China Could Soon Have Stronger Privacy Laws than the U.S.  (Shen Lu, Protocol)
Really — at least, when it comes to corporations collecting data. A major draft law could end the free-for-all in the world’s largest market.

China’s Tencent in Talks with U.S. to Keep Gaming Investments – Sources  (Greg Roumeliotisand Echo Wang, Reuters)
The Chinese technology giant Tencent is in talks with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to craft an agreement that would allow the firm to retain its stakes in two U.S. video game makers. Tencent’s stake in Epic Games and Riot Games had come under scrutiny because of concerns about the handling of user data and whether access to that data might pose a national-security risk given the firms’ Chinese ownership. According to Reuters, Tencent is in talks to set up mitigation measures that would allow the company to maintain control of its subsidiaries.

Seven Apple Suppliers Accused of Using Forced Labor from Xinjiang  (Wayne Ma, The Information)

Seven Chinese companies that serve as suppliers to Apple are linked to the use of forced labor. The suppliers included several firms reportedly reliant on members of the Uyghur ethnic group conscripted into labor. Apple said it had not found evidence of forced labor in its supply chains.

China Threatens Retaliation against Ericsson if Sweden Doesn’t Drop Huawei 5G Ban  (Stu Woo, Wall Street Journal)
Swedish telecom-equipment maker’s role in China’s 5G build-out is at risk, Chinese state media says.

Family De-planning: The Coercive Campaign to Drive Down Indigenous Birth-rates in Xinjiang  (Nathan Ruser and James Leibold, ASPI)
A new report provides new evidence documenting the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s systematic efforts to reduce the size of the indigenous population of Xinjiang through a range of coercive birth-control policies.

Amid U.S.-China Competition over AI Capabilities, EU Projects Regulatory Power  (Matt Sheehan, Marcopolo)
Last month the European Commission (EC) released its far-reaching proposal for regulating artificial intelligence (AI), the “Artificial Intelligence Act.” Intended to create a unified set of rules across the European Union (EU), the Act marks one of the first serious attempts in the world at creating an overarching regulatory framework for AI.  

The Act also complicates predictions of a bipolar AI world in which Washington and Beijing vie for dominance while the rest of the world looks on passively. Instead, the new EC draft regulations could steer us toward a tripolar AI landscape. While America and China are pushing the limits of AI in different ways, Europe is acting as the lead regulator to ensure that AI is deployed in safe and responsible ways. 

Why Is China Making a Permanent Enemy of India?  (Brahma Chellaney, Nikkei)
Beijing’s Ladakh aggression is driving New Delhi ever closer to Washington.

U.S. Needs New Legal Tools to Combat China Threats, Says Trade Chief Katherine Tai  (SCMP)
Tai told US lawmakers that existing trade laws seek to protect US firms after they have already been harmed, rather than anticipating and preventing damage.
New tools could lay the groundwork for future new tariffs to shield more US industries or be used as leverage in negotiations.

China’s Emissions Surpass All Developed Nations Combined  (Ben German, Axios)
The distribution of global greenhouse gas emissions has reached an inflection point: China’s emissions exceeded developed nations combined in 2019, a new Rhodium Group analysis concludes.