Chinese innovation leadership drives global totalitarianism

Second, China’s illiberal campaign capitalizes on a disturbing global trend: As Freedom House reports, authoritarianism has spread during every year since 2006, while democracy has retreated. This “democratic recession” has given China a window of ideological opportunity to promote a vision of a hierarchical and harmonious society and a critique of a disorderly and decadent West. Around the world, public faith in democratic institutions has sunk to lows not seen since the 1930s. The political soil has grown ripe for authoritarianism to take root, and China, Russia, and other authoritarian states are fertilizing this antidemocratic plant with digital disinformation that their propagandists pump into the social-media feeds of billions worldwide.21

The third and most important factor supercharging China’s efforts is the ongoing digital revolution.22 The CCP possesses data-collection and messaging power to rival that of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter.23 By combining artificial intelligence (AI) and “big data” with cyber, biometric, and speech- and facial-recognition technologies, Beijing is pioneering a system that will allow dictators to know everything about their subjects—what people are saying and viewing, whom they hang out with, what they like and dislike, and where they are located at any given time—and to discipline citizens instantly by restricting their access to credit, education, employment, medical care, telecommunications, and travel if not to hunt them down for more medieval forms of punishment.

This technological revolution threatens to upend the global balance between democracy and authoritarianism by making repression more affordable and effective than ever.24 Instead of relying on expensive and potentially rebellious armies to brutalize a resentful population, an autocrat will now have more insidious means of control. Millions of spies can be replaced with hundreds of millions of unblinking cameras. Facial-recognition technologies can rapidly sort through video feeds and identify troublemakers. Bots can deliver propaganda tailored to specific groups. Malware can be installed on computers through seemingly innocuous apps or links, and then government hackers can crash the computer networks of dissidents or gather information on their operations. That information, in turn, can be used to coopt resistance movements by bribing their leaders or meeting their more innocuous demands. Alternatively, authorities can print out an AI-assembled list of alleged activists and kill everyone on it.

The evil genius of this “digital authoritarianism” is that most people will be seemingly free to go about their daily lives. In truth, however, the state will be constantly censoring everything they see and tracking everything they do. With old-school authoritarianism, one at least knew where the oppression was coming from. But now people can be nudged and cajoled by invisible algorithms delivering personalized content to their phones. In past eras, autocrats had to make tough choices between funding death squads or economic development. Today, however, repression is not only affordable, but also profitable, because “smart-city” technologies that enable tight social control can also be used to fight crime, diagnose diseases, and make the trains run on time.

These technologies are a tyrant’s dream. Recognizing this demand, Chinese companies were already selling and operating surveillance systems in more than eighty countries as of 2020.25 As the CCP feels increasingly threatened at home and abroad, there is every reason to expect Beijing to export digital authoritarianism farther and wider. Many countries already want it, and China has powerful tools to compel those that do not. Want access to the vast PRC market? Let Huawei install the core components of your 5G network. Want a Chinese loan? Accept PRC surveillance technology in your capital city.

As more governments partner with Beijing, the reach of China’s surveillance state will grow.26 Existing autocracies will become more totalitarian, and some democracies will drift into the authoritarian camp. International conflicts will likely proliferate—not merely those of ideas but those of arms, for as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine illustrates, dictatorship often turns to blood-and-soil nationalism and violent revanchism. The liberal belief that democracy and peace are destined to spread around the world will be upended. So will the comforting myth that humanity has evolved past the point of mass atrocities, because digital authoritarianism does not displace gulags and genocide; it enables them. When dictatorships ramp up digital repression, they also engage in more torture and murder.27 Computers and cameras handling everyday surveillance free the regime’s foot soldiers for tasks such as ethnic cleansing and beating dissidents into submission. Xinjiang, with its smart cities and concentration camps, offers a glimpse of this dire future.28