TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — China's revised National Defense Mobilization Law expands the government's ability to mobilize economic and social resources for national defense and broadens the grounds for state intervention in private property and economic development.
The revised law, China's first major overhaul of the legislation since it took effect in 2010, defines national defense mobilization as measures taken to respond to threats to national sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity, security, and development interests, per Liberty Times. It also requires the country to ensure a rapid transition from peacetime to wartime and convert economic and social resources into national defense capabilities. The revised law takes effect Oct. 1.
The law would allow China to more rapidly place personnel, transportation, communications, energy, medical services, and media resources under wartime controls once authorities declare a state of national defense mobilization. Chinese men aged 18 to 60 and women aged 18 to 55 would also be required to perform national defense duties under the law.
Hung Pu-chao (洪浦釗), deputy executive director of Tunghai University's Center for China Studies, said the revision reflects China's broader effort to strengthen its ability to mobilize in response to national security threats and war, Liberty Times reported. He said it reflects a concept of “total mobilization” in which the military, economy, industry, manpower, and broader society would be mobilized to support wartime needs.
Yang Tai-yuan (楊太源), a researcher at Tamkang University’s Center for Advanced Technology, noted that the revised law newly includes the term “expropriation,” per RTI. The previous law used “requisition,” which implied that property would be returned after use or that other compensation would be provided, whereas expropriation involves a transfer of property rights.
“It is essentially giving them a blank check,” Yang said. Whether a company is state-owned, foreign-invested, or privately owned, he said, it could be expropriated or requisitioned if it operates in China and authorities consider such action necessary.
Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the revised law adds “development interests” to the purposes of national defense mobilization, RTI reported. The term is broad and includes competition with other countries in technology, meaning mobilization is no longer limited to traditional security concerns such as war or regional conflict.
Shen said development interests could enable authorities to use national defense mobilization to ensure economic stability or control key areas of economic development, even outside wartime. The provision gives China greater flexibility to cite economic, industrial, or technological development as grounds for mobilization, he said.
