China pledges new push against ‘hostile forces’

China’s chief prosecutor said on Sunday that battling “infiltration, subversion and sabotage by hostile forces” is a key priority this year, with terrorists, ethnic separatists and religious extremists all in his crosshairs.

In a speech to the annual session of China’s national legislature, Cao Jianmin also listed combating cybercrime and ensuring national sovereignty in cyberspace as items topping the list of 2016 priorities. Prosecutors will also continue to follow up on cases brought to as part of an almost three-year-old nationwide anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by the ruling Communist Party’s watchdog agency, Cao said.

Although he identified no specific groups or individuals as threats, Beijing has in the past cited a long list of “hostile forces” it accuses of seeking to end communist rule and plunge China into chaos, division and economic ruin.

Those include agents of foreign governments, civil society groups who challenge the party’s absolute authority, religious dissenters such as the underground church and the banned F— APalun Gong meditation sect. Those campaigning for ethnic rights are also frequently cited, including exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama and advocates for the Turkic Muslim Uighur minority from the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

In an accompanying address to the legislature, top judge Zhou Qiang said Chinese courts convicted 1,419 people last year of national security and terrorism crimes that carry potential death sentences. That compares with 712 people sentenced for incitement to separatism, terrorism and related charges in 2014, before last year’s passage of a sweeping new national security law.