China today possesses the world’s most comprehensive system of surveillance. Over five hundred million security cameras ensure the state sees everything. Chinese citizens’ phones act as digital trackers, logging visited locations and identifying the patterns of everyday life. Individuals are watched at all times of day in their workplaces, public areas, and even in the privacy of their own dwellings. The AI systems analyzing camera footage can identify a person from their eyes and gait, and mete out punishment for those spotted violating the law (no more jaywalking, folks) accordingly. Digital profiles of every citizen are built to log habits, social connections, residences, and possessions.
The goal of all of this is to maintain a harsh social order that leaves no room for dissent. Knowing that every move is logged on camera and sent to a database dissuades those who otherwise might wish to protest the CCP. Punishment for those caught is harsh - a reduction of Social Credit Score or even "disappearance" for those suspected of the most serious crimes - and public dissent is rare. Demonstrations that do occur are rapidly scrubbed from the Chinese internet, as happened with the Sitong bridge protest in mid-October.
In the United States and the West as a whole, such an oppressive apparatus would be viewed as a grotesque violation of the individual liberties that form the bedrock of our society. Mass surveillance? Omnipresent government tracking? Perhaps one of the only things opposing politicians today could agree on would be a sense of horror at both. Thank god we don’t have that here, right?
Wrong. China’s ruthless security system isn’t coming. It’s already here, encroaching from the streets of New York City to the canals of Amsterdam. The threat is two-dimensional: one aspect targets Chinese citizens and dissidents throughout the West. The other aspect is subtler: the export and widespread adoption of Chinese surveillance technology and the data-harvesting of American citizens.
Operation “Fox Hunt”; or who cares about sovereignty anyways?
In July of 2021, the investigative nonprofit ProPublica published an eye-opening piece. It described the efforts of the Chinese government to return some of its citizens abroad home through coercion and threats. These efforts, officially called “Operation Fox Hunt” targeted dissidents and people facing often murky criminal charges back in China. Chinese intelligence operatives would use the family members still in China of targets as leverage, threatening and cajoling the targets to return home or else. Chinese intelligence officers have operated across the United States in such a manner since at least 2014, often tailed by FBI agents. Their efforts are relentless. Speaking to Pro-Publica, a former American counter-intelligence official said this: “They will tap literally anyone with access in the community where the fugitive may be hiding and working. China has the largest security apparatus in the world.” The Chinese security services are not hindered by operating in different jurisdictions or violating national sovereignty; their purview is global. To be clear: all of this is highly illegal, which makes the scale of the issue even more shocking.
Since the piece was published, the Chinese efforts have only intensified. On October 20th, 2022, seven Chinese nationals were charged by the Justice Department with attempting to “coerce a United States resident to return to the PRC,” showing that the Chinese security services remain active on US soil. But even more disturbing developments have arisen abroad. In mid-October, news broke that the Chinese government was running over fifty four overseas police stations around the world without the consent of the host governments. In theory meant to service Chinese citizens overseas with paperwork issues and other administrative minutiae, they also serve as bases for Chinese law-enforcement and security agencies to track down and pressure Chinese citizens abroad to return home. In the Netherlands, where two such stations were found, a Dutch news investigation found that at least one dissident had been targeted from one of the stations. All of these stations operate outside the boundary of international diplomacy and legal recognition. By not informing the host governments of their presence, they can also skirt the behavioral constraints imposed by international law. Ignoring the protections afforded to residents of host countries and extradition laws make bringing targets back to China much easier. Since its inception, Fox Hunt has resulted in the return of nearly 230,000 people to China, almost always under duress. Are some of them genuine criminals who fled mainland China in fear of prosecution? Absolutely. However, the illegal rendition of these suspects abroad and the political targeting of many of them is a grave violation of international law and tramples all over one of the most fundamental tenets of international diplomacy: respect for national sovereignty.
TikTok and Hikvision
The other aspect of the surveillance state abroad covers the widespread adoption of Chinese surveillance technology and the popularity of Chinese-owned apps such as TikTok. An Atlantic article in October of 2021 exposed an alarming dependence on Chinese surveillance technology company Hikvision, which is a state-owned entity. The use of Hikvision security cameras is common throughout American police departments, commercial centers, and residential buildings. Until an executive order in 2019 banned their use by the federal government, they were also used by the federal government and US military. Why the uproar against Hikvision? It turned out that its cameras were used on a massive scale in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has been oppressing millions of Uighurs. Besides the obvious risks of using Chinese surveillance technology, use of the cameras presents an ethical quandary. Millions of the cameras are still used around the globe.
In addition to the sale of actual surveillance systems, China also possesses a powerful tool in the form of TikTok. TikTok is one of the world’s most popular apps, consisting of short videos with music clips overlaid above them. More than eighty million Americans use the app regularly, and it would be difficult to find a teenager in America who doesn’t have the app installed on their phone. However, Tiktok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese media company that has links to the Chinese Communist Party. This poses several problems, ranging from Chinese control of American users' data to questions of censorship and influence. ByteDance maintains tight control over the day to day operations of TikTok, and has already skirted controversy by censoring certain subject matter harmful to the CCP. The influence Tiktok gifts the CCP as Chinese-American relations deteriorate poses a threat. Former President Donald Trump publicly contemplated banning TikTok, and the company is currently in negotiations with the Biden administration regarding its future status in the United States.
As the US-China rivalry continues to intensify, it is important that policy makers and the general public understand that China’s authoritarian system is not so far removed from them. It is likely that most people reading this article have interacted with it in one way or another, be it via TikTok, walking down a street monitored by Hikvision cameras, or living in or nearby a community where the Chinese security services have targeted individuals. As China has expanded its economic reach into every market around the world, so too has the darkness of its political system.
Commenti