China’s Draft Special Provisions on Protecting Trade Secrets: What the Six Proposed Measures Would Reach
- The Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Treaty and Law released a draft of the Special Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets for public comment on 26 October 2026, and the text remains a consultation draft that has not taken effect.
商务部条法司于 2026 年 10 月 26 日就《保护中国商业秘密特别规定（征求意见稿）》公开征求意见，该文本仍为征求意见稿，尚未生效。
- The draft is directed at foreign entities that carry out, outside China, acts infringing China’s trade secrets.
征求意见稿针对的是在中国境外实施侵犯中国商业秘密行为的外国实体。
- It sets out six categories of measures that may be applied individually or in combination, running from trade restrictions through investment, entry and work authorisation to a fine of an appropriate amount.
征求意见稿列出可单独或合并采取的六类措施，从贸易限制延伸到投资、入境、工作许可，直至相应数额的罚款。
- Five of the six operate on eligibility rather than on property: they touch trade in goods, technology and services, new investment in China, entry, and work, stay or residence status.
六类措施中的五类作用于资格而非财产：涉及货物、技术与服务贸易，境内新增投资，入境，以及工作、停留或居留资格。
- The draft sets no fine amount and no calculation method; it says only that a fine of an appropriate amount may be imposed in accordance with the circumstances.
征求意见稿未设定罚款数额，也未规定计算方法，仅规定可根据情节轻重依法给予相应数额的罚款。
- For companies already operating in China the exposure runs the other way: an employee who leaves with technical material can trigger Chinese trade secret liability and a group compliance failure at the same time.
对已在华经营的企业，风险方向相反：员工带着技术资料离职，可能同时触发中国商业秘密法律责任与集团合规失守。
- Cross-border technology transfer inside a group needs a three-part record — source, authorisation and purpose — because one document can be a trade secret, a controlled export item and personal data at once.
集团内部的跨境技术转移需要”来源—授权—用途”三段留痕，因为同一份文件可能同时是商业秘密、受管制出口物项和个人信息。
- Supply chain due diligence should add lawful provenance of intellectual property as a separate line item, alongside the export control screening most groups already run.
供应链尽调应在多数集团已做的出口管制筛查之外，把知识产权的合法来源单列一项。
China’s Draft Special Provisions on Protecting Trade Secrets: What the Six Proposed Measures Would Reach | 中国《保护中国商业秘密特别规定（征求意见稿）》：六类拟采取措施对外国实体意味着什么
Overview
On 26 October 2026 the Department of Treaty and Law of the Ministry of Commerce published a draft of the Special Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets and opened it for public comment. The document is a consultation draft: it has not been adopted, has not been promulgated and is not in force. The channel for comment is the one published on the ministry’s website, and the ministry’s policy consultation page carries the text.
What the draft does is narrow and specific. It is directed at foreign entities that carry out, outside China, acts infringing China’s trade secrets, and it lists the measures that may be taken against them. It is not a restatement of the domestic trade secret rules, and it does not amend them.
Where the draft sits
China already has several routes against trade secret infringement, and each works on conduct with a Chinese nexus. The Anti-Unfair Competition Law, as revised with effect from 15 October 2025, prohibits infringement of commercial secrets and provides civil and administrative remedies. The Criminal Law reaches serious cases through the offence of infringing trade secrets. Technology leaving the country is separately regulated under the technology import and export rules, which operate through a catalogue of prohibited and restricted technologies and through licensing and registration. Cross-border data transfer is regulated on its own track.
Those routes are effective where the infringer, the act or the assets are in China. The draft addresses the case they handle awkwardly: an act committed abroad by a foreign entity, where a Chinese rights holder holds a judgment or finding but has few assets in the jurisdiction to enforce it against. Whether the measures will be used in that way is a matter for the final text and for practice; the draft itself only lists what may be done.
The six proposed measures
As published for comment, the draft provides that one or more of the following measures may be taken against a foreign entity:
- Trade. Restricting or prohibiting its engagement in goods and technology import and export, and in international service trade, connected with China; and prohibiting the export of relevant items to it.
- Investment. Restricting or prohibiting new investment by it within China.
- Entry. Restricting or prohibiting the entry of its relevant personnel and means of transport.
- Work and residence. Restricting or cancelling the work permits, stay or residence qualifications of its relevant personnel in China.
- Fine. Imposing a fine of an appropriate amount in accordance with law, according to the seriousness of the circumstances.
- Residual. Other necessary measures.
Read as a set, five of the six operate on eligibility. They remove or condition the ability to trade with China, to invest in China, to enter China, or to work and reside in China. Only the fifth is monetary, and the draft leaves its amount open. For a company whose business depends on a Chinese supply chain, a Chinese customer base or a Chinese technical team, the eligibility measures are the ones that matter: a restriction on new investment or on entry does not need a large number attached to it to change a business plan.
On the text as published, no entity is named and no listing mechanism is described. The measures are framed as powers that may be applied, not as a schedule of designations.
What the draft does not do
Three limits should be recorded before the text is read into a compliance programme.
It is not in force. A consultation draft has no legal effect. Nothing in it can be relied on as a basis for a decision, and any internal note should say so in terms.
It sets no amount. The reference to a fine of an appropriate amount is a reference to the applicable law and to the circumstances; the draft does not fix a figure, a range or a method. Any figure circulating in commentary is not from the text.
It does not replace the existing routes. The civil, administrative and criminal routes to trade secret infringement continue unchanged. A foreign entity that infringes a Chinese party’s trade secrets abroad remains exposed to those routes in the ordinary way, and a Chinese party that suffers the loss retains its claims.
What it means for foreign-invested companies in China
The direction of the draft points outward, at foreign entities acting abroad. A foreign-invested company operating in China is, in the ordinary case, a rights holder rather than an addressee. The practical relevance is indirect, and it runs through three points.
Departing employees. A researcher or engineer who leaves a Chinese subsidiary for a competitor, taking process documentation, formulation data or source code, is the classic fact pattern. It engages the Chinese trade secret rules directly, and it engages the group’s own compliance record: a group that cannot show what it protected, how it was protected and when access was withdrawn has a weak position both in the Chinese proceedings and in its own internal review.
Intra-group technical flows. Technical material moving between a Chinese entity and an overseas affiliate is often treated as internal and therefore unremarkable. It is not. The same file may be a trade secret, a technology whose export is restricted or prohibited, and personal data. A transfer file that records only the sender and the recipient is not enough; the record needs to show where the material came from, who authorised the transfer and what it is being used for.
Supply chain due diligence. Most groups already screen suppliers for export control exposure. The additional question is provenance of intellectual property: whether the supplier’s technology, tooling or design was lawfully obtained, from whom, and under what agreement. A supplier that cannot document provenance can transmit risk upstream, and the risk runs in both directions — a Chinese rights holder may claim against the group, and the group may find its own technology in a supplier’s product.
Preparing during the comment period
The comment period is the right time to do work that is useful whatever the final text says.
- Audit the confidentiality architecture. Identify what the Chinese operation actually treats as a trade secret, and whether the classification is documented. Secrecy that exists only in a policy manual is difficult to prove.
- Upgrade exit protocols. Return-of-material obligations, device imaging, access revocation on the last working day, and an exit interview record. These are the facts that decide a case two years later.
- Map intra-group technical transfers. For each recurring flow, record source, authorisation and purpose, and check the export control position of the technology concerned before the next transfer.
- Separate the three legal characters of a document. A technical file may need handling as a trade secret, as controlled technology and as personal data; one review that covers all three is cheaper than three.
- Add an IP provenance line to supplier questionnaires. Ask for the origin of the technology, the licence chain and any restriction on further transfer.
- Track the final text. The measures may change; the drafting of the fine provision and any procedural article are the parts to watch.
Outlook
A consultation draft is a statement of intent, and the gap between the draft and the final instrument is usually where the operative detail appears: the standard for identifying an entity, the procedure, and the relationship between these measures and the existing enforcement routes. Until the text is promulgated, the appropriate internal position is that the instrument is pending and that no decision should be built on it.
What can be said now is that the direction is consistent with a broader pattern: Chinese trade secret protection has been strengthened on the domestic side over several years, and the draft extends the frame to conduct outside the territory. For a group with technology in China, the useful response is not to speculate about the final text but to be able to demonstrate, with documents, where its technology came from and where it went.
Related reading
- *China’s Five Export-Control Notices of 19 October 2026: A Supplier Screening Update* (Article 475) — the export control screening that the provenance review described above sits alongside.
Sources
- Ministry of Commerce, Department of Treaty and Law — consultation page for the draft Special Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets: https://tfs.mofcom.gov.cn/lfzqyj/art/2026/art_db6a858a9d4e4ec0a3dbeece659c324d.html
- Ministry of Commerce — policy and regulation consultation column: https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zqyj/zcfgzqyj/index.html
- Ministry of Commerce — policy releases: https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/
- The State Council of China — policy document library: https://www.gov.cn/
中国《保护中国商业秘密特别规定（征求意见稿）》：六类拟采取措施对外国实体意味着什么
概述
2026 年 10 月 26 日，商务部条法司公布《保护中国商业秘密特别规定（征求意见稿）》，公开征求意见。该文件是征求意见稿：尚未通过、尚未公布、尚未生效。反馈渠道为商务部网站公布的渠道，商务部政策法规征求意见栏目载有该文本。
这份稿子的内容范围很窄，也很具体。它针对的是在中国境外实施侵犯中国商业秘密行为的外国实体，并列出可对其采取的措施。它不是对境内商业秘密规则的重复表述，也不修改这些规则。
这份稿子在制度中的位置
中国对侵犯商业秘密行为已有若干条路径，每一条都作用于与中国有连接点（属地、属人、财产所在地等）的行为。《反不正当竞争法》经修订后自 2025 年 10 月 15 日起施行，禁止侵犯商业秘密，并提供民事与行政救济。《刑法》通过侵犯商业秘密罪处理情节严重的案件。技术出境另由技术进出口管理规则调整，通过禁止类、限制类技术目录以及许可、登记程序运行。数据出境则另有独立轨道。
这些路径在侵权人、侵权行为或财产位于中国境内时有效。征求意见稿针对的正是这些路径处理起来不顺畅的情形：行为由外国实体在境外实施，中国权利人有生效裁判或认定，但在境内可供执行的财产有限。这些措施最终是否这样使用，取决于正式文本与实务；征求意见稿本身只列出”可以做什么”。
六类拟采取措施
按公开征求意见的文本，可对外国实体采取以下措施中的一项或多项：
- 贸易。 限制或禁止其从事与中国有关的货物、技术进出口以及国际服务贸易活动；禁止向其出口相关物项。
- 投资。 限制或禁止其在中国境内新增投资。
- 入境。 限制或禁止其相关人员、交通运输工具等入境。
- 工作与居留。 限制或取消其相关人员在中国境内的工作许可、停留或者居留资格。
- 罚款。 根据情节轻重，依法给予相应数额的罚款。
- 兜底。 其他必要的措施。
作为一组来看，六类中有五类作用于”资格”。它们取消或限制与中国贸易、在中国投资、进入中国、在中国工作与居留的能力，或者为其附加条件。只有第五类是金钱性的，而征求意见稿对其数额留白。对业务依赖中国供应链、中国客户群或中国技术团队的公司而言，起决定作用的是资格类措施：限制新增投资或限制入境，不需要配上很大的数字，就足以改变一项商业计划。
就公开的文本而言，没有点名任何实体，也没有描述列名机制。这些措施被表述为”可以采取”的权力，而不是一份列名清单。
征求意见稿没有做什么
在把这份文本读进合规方案之前，有三点界限应当先记下来。
它尚未生效。 征求意见稿没有法律效力。其中任何内容都不能作为决策依据，内部备忘应当把这一点写明。
它没有设定数额。 “相应数额的罚款”指向的是适用法律与具体情节；征求意见稿没有固定金额、区间或计算方法。流传于评论中的任何数字都不是文本内容。
它不替代既有路径。 侵犯商业秘密的民事、行政与刑事路径照旧运行。在境外侵犯中国主体商业秘密的外国实体，仍按原有方式面对这些路径；受损害的中国主体也仍然保有相应请求权。
对在华外资企业意味着什么
征求意见稿的方向是向外的，指向在境外行事的外国实体。在华经营的外资企业，通常情况下是权利人而不是被采取措施的对象。其现实关联是间接的，落在三点上。
离职人员。 研发或工程人员带着工艺文档、配方数据或源代码离职加入竞争对手，是最典型的场景。它直接触发中国商业秘密规则，也触及集团自身的合规记录：一个无法说明保护了什么、如何保护、何时收回访问权限的集团，在中国程序中与在自身内部复盘中都处于弱势。
集团内部技术流转。 中国实体与境外关联方之间的技术资料流转，常被视为内部事项而不以为意。事实并非如此。同一份文件可能同时是商业秘密、属于限制或禁止出口的技术、以及个人信息。只记录发件人与收件人的传输档案不够；记录需要显示材料从何而来、由谁授权转移、用于何处。
供应链尽调。 多数集团已就出口管制风险筛查供应商。需要增加的问题是知识产权的来源：供应商的技术、工装或设计是否合法取得、从谁取得、依据何种协议。无法证明来源的供应商，会把风险向上游传导，而这一风险现在是双向的——中国权利人可能向集团主张，集团也可能在供应商的产品中发现自己的技术。
征求意见期内的准备工作
征求意见期适合做那些无论正式文本如何都有用的工作。
- 梳理保密体系。 确认中国业务实际把什么当作商业秘密，这一分类是否有文档记录。只存在于制度手册里的”保密”，在举证时很难成立。
- 升级离职流程。 资料返还义务、设备镜像、最后工作日的权限收回、离职面谈记录。这些正是两年后决定案件走向的事实。
- 绘制集团内部技术转移图。 对每一类反复发生的流转，记录来源、授权与用途，并在下一次转移前核对相关技术的出口管制状态。
- 区分一份文件的三种法律属性。 技术文件可能同时需要按商业秘密、按受管制技术和按个人信息处理；一次覆盖三项的审查，比三次分别做更省成本。
- 在供应商问卷中增加知识产权来源一项。 询问技术来源、许可链条以及是否限制再转移。
- 跟踪正式文本。 措施内容可能调整；罚款条款的写法以及任何程序性条款是值得关注的部分。
展望
征求意见稿是意向的表达，而草案与正式文件之间的差距，通常正是可操作细节出现的地方：认定实体的标准、程序，以及这些措施与既有执法路径之间的关系。在文本正式公布之前，恰当的内部立场是：该文件尚在制定过程中，不应据此作出任何决定。
现在可以确定的是，方向与一个更大的趋势一致：中国在境内一侧对商业秘密的保护已持续强化数年，征求意见稿把视野延伸到境外行为。对在中国拥有技术的集团而言，有用的应对不是猜测正式文本，而是能够用文件证明：技术从何而来，又去了哪里。
延伸阅读
- 《2026 年 10 月 19 日五份出口管制公告：供应商筛查更新》（第 475 篇）——与上述来源审查并行的那套出口管制筛查。
来源
- 商务部条法司·《保护中国商业秘密特别规定（征求意见稿）》公开征求意见页面：https://tfs.mofcom.gov.cn/lfzqyj/art/2026/art_db6a858a9d4e4ec0a3dbeece659c324d.html
- 商务部·政策法规征求意见栏目：https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zqyj/zcfgzqyj/index.html
- 商务部·政策发布：https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/
- 中国政府网·政策文件库：https://www.gov.cn/