WESTERN governments and foreign non-profit groups are pressuring China to revise a proposed law they say would severely restrict the activities of non-government organisations, business groups and universities.

The draft law “governing foreign NGOs”, has triggered a storm of criticism since it was made open for public consultation last month. It requires foreign non-profits to find an official sponsor, typically a government-backed agency, and gives broad latitude to the police to regulate activities and funding.

In a confidential diplomatic document, the European Union said China was using the law to “silence dissenting voices”.

The EU outlined its concerns about the laws that would in effect grant law enforcement authorities sweeping powers to “micro-manage” foreign NGOs with political, religious and human rights organisations.

“It’s an effort to control foreign organisations under the guise of law-based governance. These are the prevailing winds of the time in China,” an official from a European country said.

The law comes amid a crackdown on dissent by President Xi Jinping’s administration. His government has detained and jailed activists and blamed “foreign forces” including foreign NGOs for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.

Under the law, the term “foreign NGO” is so loosely defined it could apply to an American professor planning to speak at a Chinese university, foreign trade associations, and overseas dance troupes performing in China.

The PSB (public security bureau) will “start controlling everything” related to NGOs in China, according to a second diplomatic source.

A coalition of groups spanning diplomacy, academia, civil society and business are organising to petition the government to tone down the law, which could be passed later this year.

A person working for a major foreign non-profit organisation said the registration process would be “a multi-layered death by bureaucracy” that could force some NGOs out of China.

China says it has about 6,000 foreign NGOs, mostly from the United States.

The law is a response to the fear of “Colour Revolutions” – popular uprisings that occurred in former Soviet states – and the Jasmine Revolution, pro-democracy protests that were snuffed out quickly in Chinese cities in 2011, said Jia Xijin, professor of civil society at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

Although the law was formulated to safeguard foreign NGOs’ “lawful rights and interests”, critics say it could hamper the growth of civil society in China.

Already some activists in China say they have been threatened by police and state security agents to sever ties to and funding from foreign entities.

NGO representatives who “subvert state power”, “engage in or provide financial assistance for political activities” can be detained for up to 15 days, fined up to 300,000 yuan and investigated for “criminal liability”.

Meanwhile, the branch of China’s police in charge of censoring “illegal and harmful” online information will make its efforts more visible to the public with the launch of their own social media accounts, the Ministry of Public Security has said.

The Chinese Government aggressively censors the internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability, including popular Western sites such as YouTube.

Police in some 50 areas, from metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai to more obscure cities such as Xuzhou in Jiangsu province, will open accounts on sites including Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, the ministry has said.

The move is a response to public concern about problems such as online gambling and pornography and is aimed at increasing the visibility of the police presence online.

Problems such as fraud,  the sale of drugs, and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge often used to lock up dissidents – have angered people and created a serious challenge to an orderly internet, it said.

The police would issue warnings to those involved in minor offences and go after more serious cases.

“Just such as in the real world, law violations in cyberspace will not go unaccounted for,” it said.

The government has already deleted some 758,000 pieces of “illegal and criminal information” and investigated more than 70,000 cyber crime cases this year, the ministry said.