Law and safety / Chapter 9
This section runs two ledgers: your personal liberty, and your money. The acts below are ones ordinary people often treat as “no big deal,” yet they can bring detention, fines, and in serious cases prison. Each item gives the concrete figures in the statutes, plus cases published through official channels. The Public Security Administration Punishment Law cited here is the 2025 revision, in force from 1 January 2026; article numbers differ from the old law. The Criminal Law citations follow a consolidated text carried by the Beijing Public Security Traffic Management Bureau, marked as amended under Amendment (XI); the body notes the matching amendment where needed.
Items in this section are grouped by theme below, with item numbers in parentheses.
Posting and forwarding online: Do not forward unverified disaster, epidemic, or police news (item 1), do not forward content that insults heroes and martyrs (item 2), close foreign-site material after viewing (item 3), do not send pornographic videos into groups (item 4).
Helping others take money, loan fraud, and insurance fraud: Part-time work that uses your card to receive money (item 5), packaging materials to cheat loans (item 6), do not withdraw from a found bank card (item 7), claim discounts under your real identity (item 8), do not lend your ID card (item 16), fabricating accidents to cheat claims (item 21).
Small everyday matters: Do not throw anything from balconies or windows (item 9), do not buy imitation guns online (item 10), register drones under a real name first (item 11), card games without a rake or organizing for pay (item 13), do not eat wild game (item 14), never electrofish at any time (item 27), do not light fires in forest or grassland when visiting graves or cooking outdoors (item 28).
Conflicts and the police: Do not detain people to collect debts (item 15), cooperate when police stop you (item 17), count the cost before hitting someone (item 19), do not carry telescopic batons or stun devices for self-defense (item 26).
Sex, children, and the body: Do not secretly film others (item 12), no sexual relations with anyone under 14 (item 18), if you cannot raise a child use civil-affairs registration (item 20), do not sell your own organs (item 22), do not assume solicitation ends in a fine alone—default is detention (item 23).
Copyright and derivative works: Fan translation, reposting, and pirated e-books (item 24), get permission before selling fan works for money (item 25).
Exams: Do not take a test for someone else, hire a proxy, or buy or sell answers (item 29).
A message about a disaster, epidemic, or police incident that you know is false and still forward is punished as heavily as if you invented it. …
Joking about heroes and martyrs, the flag, or the anthem can mean detention for 5 to 10 days, or a fine of 1000 to 3000 yuan. More serious cases bring detention for 10 to 15 days. If it is a crime, the sentence is up to 3 years. …
These statutes punish spreading outward, not looking. Forwarding, moving into a group, or chiming in in the comments all count as dissemination when a case is built. …
Watching alone is not in the punishment clauses. Sending into a group is online dissemination; the text does not require a minimum number of sends. …
These jobs earn a few hundred yuan; the price is a record. Someone took an ID card and 1 bank card to a designated place, helped with transfers and withdrawals, and earned a little over 500 yuan. …
Helping others “package materials” for a loan and taking a cut is treated as fraud. …
Keeping found property for yourself, when the amount reaches “relatively large” and you refuse to hand it over, brings up to 2 years; when the amount is huge, 2 to 5 years. …
Claiming a coupon once under your real identity and one account is outside punishment. Mass-registering fake users or placing and accepting your own orders to claim more is treated as fraud. …
Throwing things downstairs can bring detention for under 5 days or a fine of up to 1000 yuan even if no one is hit; when circumstances are serious, detention for 10 to 15 days. …
BB guns and air guns bought online, once muzzle specific energy reaches 1.8 joules per square centimeter, are treated as firearms. Holding them without a permit brings up to 3 years; when circumstances are serious, 3 to 7 years. …
Flying a drone without proper registration can result in a fine of up to 200 yuan; repeat or serious violations may incur fines ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 yuan. …
Secretly filming, peeping, or spreading someone’s privacy brings detention for under 5 days or a fine of up to 1000 yuan; when circumstances are heavier, detention for 5 to 10 days. …
Small-stakes card games among relatives and friends are not the law’s concern. …
Eating nationally key-protected animals means the items are confiscated and a fine of 2 to 20 times their value. Buying, selling, or transporting precious or endangered animals brings up to 5 years; serious cases, 5 to 10 years. …
Even when the money is truly owed to you, you still cannot detain or lock someone up: the statute expressly says doing this to collect a debt is still illegal detention. …
Lending, renting, or transferring your ID card to someone else brings a warning and a fine of up to 200 yuan. Using someone else’s ID, or one obtained by fraud, brings a fine of 200 to 1000 yuan, or detention for up to 10 days. …
Simply refusing to comply with police orders can result in a warning or a fine of up to 500 yuan; more serious cases may lead to detention for 5 to 10 days. …
If the other person is under 14, whether or not they agreed, it is handled as rape with heavier punishment; the baseline term is 3 to 10 years. If they are under 12, you are always found to have “ought to have known.” …
The bill for one strike: detention for 5 to 10 days, plus a fine of 500 to 1000 yuan. Causing minor injury makes it a criminal case, up to 3 years; serious injury, 3 to 10 years. …
There is a way out if you cannot raise the child, but the only lawful one is registering the adoption with civil affairs; the adoption relationship exists only from the day of registration. …
Inventing an accident or inflating losses to cheat a claim is insurance fraud; a relatively large amount brings up to 5 years plus a fine of 10000 to 100000 yuan (1万 to 10万). …
Living organs may only be donated to a spouse, direct blood relative, or collateral blood relative within three generations; buying and selling are both unlawful. …
Being caught is not paying a small fine and walking away. The statute’s default band is detention for 10 to 15 days, with a further fine of up to 5000 yuan. …
Translating someone else’s work without permission and posting it, or putting it online, is infringement even without charging — it must be taken down and compensated. …
Even if a fan work only borrows character names, personalities, and relationships, publishing it may still be deemed copyright infringement. …
Controlled knives such as daggers and switchblades, if found carried out, can bring detention for under 5 days. Taking them into stations, malls, or buses brings detention for 5 to 10 days. …
Electrofishing, poisoning, or blasting fish in a closed zone or closed season already meets the threshold for illegal harvesting of aquatic products, up to 3 years. …
Lighting a fire in a fire-prevention zone during fire-prevention season can bring a fine of 300 to 5000 yuan even if nothing burns. …
Hiring a proxy or taking a test for someone else is a crime; it can bring criminal detention and a fine, and those who became civil servants through a proxy exam were dismissed from public office. …
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