China’s plans to implement a new anti-espionage law from next month could create additional risks for organizations working near the North Korean border, while making it more difficult for defectors to escape, experts told NK News this week.

In April, Beijing promulgated a new law that expands the definition of espionage to include the theft or acquisition of not only state secrets but any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security and interests,” without specifying what national security entails.

The “Counter-espionage Law of the People’s Republic of China” is set to go into effect on July 1.

Eric