China passes first biosecurity law in wake of Covid-19 pandemic
- Legislation includes measures that range from protection of biodiversity to measures to control biological laboratories and prevent terrorist attacks
- Observers say the measures were rushed through following the emergence of the coronavirus late last year
China has passed its first biosecurity law, highlighting the importance the Chinese leadership attaches to the issue following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new law has 10 chapters and a total of 88 articles, covering issues such as the prevention and control of infectious diseases, establishment of a risk monitoring and early warning system, track and trace mechanisms, the management of biological laboratories, biodiversity protection and measures to prevent biological attacks by terrorists.
The legislation was adopted by the country’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, on Saturday after having been apparently fast-tracked following the emergence of Covid-19 in Wuhan late last year.
It also comes ahead of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Yunnan province in May.
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Yuan Jie, an official from the legislative affairs committee of the NPC Standing Committee, told state media that the new law would be the “foundation” for safeguarding national security and would pave the way for other legislation.
Yang Zhaoxia, deputy director of the research centre for ecological law at Beijing Forestry University, said: “China now faces a less than friendly international environment and the risk of attack by biological weapons or infectious diseases triggered by biological weapons have become real in this new environment.
“Therefore from a national and public security standpoint, Chinese leaders are paying greater attention to these issues.”
Yang said the Standing Committee had accelerated the legislative process by skipping one round of reviews, which reflected the urgency attached to the issue following the Covid-19 outbreak.
Yu Wenxuan, director of the institute of environmental resource law at the China University of Political Science and Law, said China was the first country to adopt laws covering such a wide range of issues.
“The biosecurity law gives detailed provisions on the research and development and application of biotechnology, the safe management of biological resources, preventing invasion by alien species and the conservation of biodiversity,” Yu said.
Zhao Wei, a professor from the school of public health at Southern Medical University, said the Covid-19 pandemic was likely to have speeded up the lawmaking process, but said the new law was more a “symbolic guide” as China still needed more detailed legislation to introduce practical measures.
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“After being passed, it will likely make governments at all level to pay greater attention to [the prevention and control] of infectious diseases,” Zhao said.
“The field of public health, which faced many problems in the past, has lagged behind in recent years after about a decade of relative calm following the Sars epidemic in 2003.
“The prevention and control of major new outbreaks of infectious diseases … is a top priority for the future, and the direction of future scientific research will lean towards this direction,” he said.
Zhao noted that the third article of the new law highlights the importance of managing biological laboratories and there may be “extra significance” to the prominence the issue has been given.
“The Ministry of Education has also held meetings recently emphasising this issue … Laboratory safety problems have always existed even in the post-Sars period and there have been biological laboratory accidents,” he said.
