Impact- A China led authoritarian surveillance state perpetuates ethnic genocide – robs everyone of freedom

The most extreme version of this techno-authoritarianism exists in Xinjiang, where the Chinese Communist Party is carrying out a brutal campaign of genocide and repression against the ethnic Uighur population. However, many of these tools are used nationwide. COVID-related measures have further enhanced the Chinese Communist Party’s control over citizen movements.

Unlike in the United States and other democratic societies, there are no legal constraints on the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to surveil its citizens. While China has passed a number of laws and regulations pertaining to cybersecurity, data, and artificial intelligence, the law serves a different purpose in China than in democratic states. Unlike the democratic concept of “rule of law,” where the law constrains even the government, China has a system of “rule by law.” The Chinese Communist Party stands above the law, and the law is a vehicle to aid the Party in governing.

Many of China’s surveillance systems today are fragmented and imperfect. However, the Party is working to improve them. China’s initial efforts to control the internet twenty years ago were similarly imperfect. Yet the Chinese Communist Party has done what many believed impossible and today exercises an incredible degree of control over the information environment inside China through censorship and government propaganda.

China is building the foundation today for an unprecedented system of technology-enhanced repression and control. General Secretary Xi Jinping has said the goal of China’s social credit system is to ensure that “Everything is convenient for the trustworthy, and the untrustworthy are unable to move a single step.”