China has released a draft cybersecurity law that seeks to beef up Beijing’s ability to guard against cyberthreats and protect data on Chinese users, while also tightening controls over the Internet. As WSJ's Gillian Wong reports:

Chinese officials have made passage of a cybersecurity law a priority for this year, reflecting the urgency of the issue in the national-security agenda of President Xi Jinping’s administration.

China, which is often accused of waging cyberwarfare against other states but which says it is itself a victim of such attacks, accelerated cybersecurity efforts after former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden said U.S. intelligence agencies used U.S. technology to spy on other governments.

The draft cybersecurity law, released this week for comments, explicitly allows Chinese authorities to cut Internet access during public-security emergencies. Chinese authorities have periodically deployed such measures during unrest in Uighur and Tibetan ethnic-minority areas in China’s west.