China’s data-security laws rattle Western business executives

preparing to board a flight from New York to Singapore in February 2019, he was pulled aside by local authorities and told to stay put. An Interpol “red notice”, a request for local law enforcement to make an arrest on behalf of another government, had been issued on his name, he would soon learn. The executive, who has asked that his real name not be used because his case is ongoing, was the founder of an international advertising group that a few years earlier had got into big trouble in China over data security. Christopher’s company entered China in 2012 and began co-operating with state-owned firms, using telecoms data to create advertising products. In 2014 the government signalled that it would strengthen data security, elevating it to the status of a national-security concern. Not long after, the offices of Christopher’s firm were raided. A dozen of his local staff were detained; two of them were held for up to two years. He hired Chinese lawyers to assess the situation but was never able to learn the specifics of the charges.