Asia-Pacific
Chinese app trains government workers how to keep state secrets
Bloomberg
May 23, 2023
Chinese national flags fly over Tiananmen Square along with other red flags ahead of the fifth plenary session of the First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Sunday, March 12, 2023. China reappointed several top economic officials in a leadership reshuffle Sunday, giving investors greater continuity as Beijing overhauls financial regulation and grapples with escalating tensions with the US. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)
China is stepping up training at its government agencies, universities and state-owned enterprises on how to safeguard state secrets, underscoring Beijing's increasing emphasis on national security.
An app linked to the National Administration of State Secret Protection began offering a course this month intended to help Communist Party members and government organization employees bolster their knowledge and skills about secret-keeping, according to a post on the app's official WeChat account.
The Baomiguan — or Views on Secret Keeping — app is running the program from May to September, it wrote in a post dated May 4.
The secret-keeping course has been promoted in recent weeks, according to interviews with workers from three state-owned enterprises, along with notices from at least eight universities and six local government agencies seen by Bloomberg News. It illustrates Beijing's growing focus on protecting national security, even as President Xi Jinping seeks to prioritize economic development and portray a welcoming environment for foreign companies.
SOE employees who have used Baomiguan told Bloomberg News that they had not been required to download or train and test using the app before this year.
The Baomiguan training is intended to "further enhance the secret-keeping awareness of personnel involved with classified information," according to a notice published this month by the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.
Course takers also need to take a test on the subject material, and then submit certificates proving their completion to the school's office in charge of secret keeping, the university notice said, adding that the course was required by a provincial authority that oversees state secrets. It applies to school officials and personnel involved in defense and military research.
The Baomiguan training applies to both domestic workers and those who are based overseas, according to an internal memo from one of the state-owned enterprises that was seen by Bloomberg News.
The official Baomiguan WeChat account said more than 1.46 million people have enrolled in the course as of May 8, with about a third receiving their completion certificates.
Baomiguan's publisher, Gold Wall Press, is run by the national state secrets administration, according to a 2020 notice on the agency's website. The app itself is about two years old.
The government's anti-soy campaign ramped up last month, when Beijing passed a vague counterespionage law that expanded the list of activities that may be considered spying as part of a national campaign.
The most high-profile target so far has been Capvision Pro, a consultancy with headquarters in New York and Shanghai that has been accused of leaking state secrets and said after a probe that it would set up a committee to manage compliance issues.
In recent months, Chinese authorities have also questioned employees at U.S. consulting firm Bain's Shanghai office, and raided New York-based due diligence firm Mintz Group's office in Beijing and detained five of its Chinese employees.