What ‘new challenges’ does China’s new border defence law aim to tackle?

The country’s first-ever law dedicated to frontier security was made necessary by ‘new problems and challenges’, top legislature says

While terror spillover from Afghanistan or violence on the Myanmar border are concerns, the timing of the law suggests pressure on India is the aim

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Chinese soldiers and tanks carry out disengagement exercises along the border with India in Ladakh in February. Photo: Handout via AFP

Published: 7:00am, 31 Oct 2021Updated: 10:33pm, 31 Oct 2021

China’s new boundary law – the country’s first-ever to address land border security and emphasise the role of the military in its defence – was made necessary by recent challenges, its top legislature has said.

The Land Borders Law, due to take effect on January 1, aims to “regulate, strengthen, protect and stabilise border security”, and also sets forth that China will handle border-related issues with neighbours through negotiations, to properly resolve disputes and long-standing issues.

Zhang Yesui, a spokesman for the National People’s Congress, said the law was needed as there was no specific legislation for coordinating China’s border controls.

“There is a lack of a specific law to regulate national borders, border defence management, and international cooperation in border affairs,” he said.

Disputed areas along the Indo-Chinese border. Graphic: SCMP

This comes amid a tense stand-off with India in the Himalayas, which sparked a deadly clash last year; sporadic armed conflict between junta troops and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, on China’s southwestern border; and risks of terror spillover from a chaotic Afghanistan following US troop withdrawal and a Taliban takeover.