[4] The passage of the National Intelligence Law was part of a larger effort by the Chinese central government to strengthen its security legislation.

Gu Bin of the Beijing Foreign Studies University wrote his opinion in the Financial Times that Article 7 "does not authorize pre-emptive spying" and "national intelligence work must be defensive".

Article 18: As required for work, and in accordance with relevant national provisions, national intelligence work institutions may ask organs such as for customs and entry-exit border inspection to provide facilitation such as exemptions from inspection.Experts argue that the law forces Chinese telecommunications companies with operations overseas such as Huawei to hand over data to Chinese government regardless of which country that data came from.

[14] Writing for China Law Translate in 2024, Jeremy Daum stated that "it is far from clear that it [Article 7 of the NIL] was ever intended to require active participation in information gathering or sharing".

Nevertheless, he stated that none of this precluded or hindered the ability of the Government of China to conduct espionage efforts and that direct requests from law enforcement or security would still be difficult to resist meaningfully.