China Drafts new Draft of Cybersecurity Law

In a story in the Wall Street Journal today we have an interesting outlook on how China appears to be changing its so-called "draft legislation" again.  It is obvious that in the five years it has been enforced on the businesses in China that is is not very popular and, beginning with Apple's reluctance to participate, causing some businesses to reconsider doing business there.  The article says China is going to allow some businesses to be members of the Technical Committee 260 which drafts this sort of policy change.  The article seems to believe that this is a milestone in improving relations with businesses operating in China.  The select group will include Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and IBM, all the big players over the long term, which have deep roots there.  Apple wasn't mentioned.

I have to say this article sounds like it was written by the Chinese press and not the Wall Street Journal.  It wouldn't be the first time that happened, but not usually with such a well known paper.  The Chinese are reaping what they were sowing seven years ago.  Businesses are finally saying they are not giving up their trade secrets just to do business in China.  Source code is a trade secret.  Encryption software is a trade secret or a patented product.  The businesses that have to have a Chinese national senior leader appointed to run their Chinese company won't like that either.  These are all things the Chinese have demanded of businesses set up there.

They call their legislation "draft" to give the idea that they are considering doing something like this, when in fact, they are already doing it.  Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, and IBM all know it.  Now, they publish a draft of the draft to try to placate some of the critics.  There is hypocrisy in there somewhere, but they gloss it over with policy that looks like something we have in the US, but isn't the same.  They are good at forming "joint ventures" that are not really the same as ours.  They are very restrictive on some types of manufacturing ownership without admitting it.  They have draft legislation in lots of areas where we have not raised objections to their behavior.
Draft legislation in the US is not enforced until it is passed.  In China, it is.