'...Some 530 camera and video surveillance patents were filed by Chinese groups last year, according to the research firm CB Insights — more than five times the number applied for in the US. Unhindered by worries about privacy or individual rights, China’s deepening specialism has attracted global customers and investors. “The surveillance industry is still in the growth phase,” proclaimed analysts at Jefferies, the New York-based investment bank. '
In a way I'm relieved the West is lagging behind on this but I found the whole article very worrying indeed. Individual digital rights have never been more urgent or important in the West to delineate 'free' society, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness etc...
Waaay more interested in the American surveillance state, which is global, penetrating, the best funded, attached to a global propaganda system, and sits in the hands of the world's premiere superpower. I'm also a citizen there.
These Chinese surveillance state stories are all really tame compared to the abuses of the American program.
Hardly. Homeland security and domestic stability requires a level of international influence. China sees the same value in information as the USA and aren't going to pass on opportunities to collect (or implant). To expect otherwise is incredibly naive.
No he's definitely right. The US drone program has a social credit kill list [1]:
> In 2014, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.”
> According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.”
> “When I learned about signature strikes, that was incredible,” Faisal says. “If the criteria is being armed or having a beard – that is everyone in Yemen.”
To argue that US is worse than China, you should first compare US to China, not just list what US does.
Chinese concentration camps and black jails are at the level of WWII era horrors. They disappear people around the world just by sending made up arrest request and taking them to China.
Tortures, disappears, organ harvest, forced rendition from foreign countries based on mass and metadata in thousands or tens of thousands peer year (ethnicity, gender, number of foreign phone calls, or family members outside country). People in concentration camps are executed "on demand" in order to provide organs to recipients.
You will never see Western journalists go after their own surveillance state even though it is far more extensive and aggressive than China. What's really strange is they accuse China of doing things like exporting compromised telcom equipment -- things that we now know that the NSA actually does. (See eg NSA interception of outbound Cisco routers.) Given this very particular blindspot you really do have to wonder who they think they're fooling.
You do see Western journalists go after it, but only from fringe pinko rags, like The Guardian, or The Intercept.
You'll never see Fox News or MSNBC take it seriously (Except when it touches identity politics, like gun registries. Then, all of a sudden, it's a huge issue! Imagine, the government having a record of all gun owners!)
> You will never see Western journalists go after their own surveillance state...
False. You see it all the time.
> ... even though it is far more extensive and aggressive than China.
Not sure I buy that, either. The US may be more aggressive in terms of information collected, and in terms of global scope. It's less aggressive than China in terms of being used to control the lives of the entire population of the country, though.
Nobody outside of the American fantasy believes this even for a second. In the US you have local law enforcement running around with cell trackers, public and private organizations deploying widespread facial tracking, and let's not even get to the absolute zero data protections Americans enjoy so literally all their data, from location history to purchase history, is available to the highest bidder. But hey, it's not the government doing the tracking so it doesn't matter! Anybody with even half a brain understands that Americans are the most surveiled people on the planet. (Though the Brits are a close second and it's not for lack of trying they're just less competent.)
But really keep focusing on China. Have a feeling this strategy will work great for you.
> It's less aggressive than China in terms of being used to control the lives of the entire population of the country, though.
I'm not sure that's true.
NSA and other US domestic surveillance capabilities feed the information it gathers passively (they call it "strategic listening") for DoD to understand how to influence entire countries, continents, world opinion.
For example, DARPA has a current program called SMISC: "Social Media in Strategic Communication" - where they are studying next generation technologies for determining how information and opinions spread by social media for US intelligence and military botnets and troll armies to influence opinions at scale. This is just a small evolution over the information domination US intelligence and security has applied domestically and globally for decades.
>> You will never see Western journalists go after their own surveillance state
The Guardian and The Intercept both did exactly that (which is why you know about the Cisco/NSA thing by the way). I believe French and German newspapers also did something similar.
No we only know about it because Snowden blew up his life to reveal it. That should give you a hint about how this works. China is remarkably transparent about their efforts. The government literally holds classes to explain the social credit system. In the US these efforts are buried for years until somebody risks everything to expose them.
"China starts from a different point of view — that a strong empowered state is necessary, in order to drag the nation forward."
I highly recommend Martin Jacques' Ted talk [0] on this very subject from over 7 years ago. I believe this aspect of Chinese culture -- of treating the state as being a BIG part of your daily life -- is super important to grasp if one wishes to get a sense of Chinese thinking and way-of-life.
It's also a starting point if one wishes to imagine how a future China might turn out to be.
Well, for me, it's just like to saying "Oh, Chinese people just do that sometimes".
It's a quite ignorant view actually, because when you look at Taiwan and Hongkong, it's very easy to found that Chinese people can adapt to many systems rather than the 'good' old authoritarianism.
Mainland China current running by the Communist Party is actually because of many historical reason, rather than a choice of Chinese people.
Also, one thing some people from the west don't understand that the Chinese government lead by the CCP also generates many many benefits to the Chinese people, and doing a not-bad job protecting their citizens. And those benefits are not easy to be ditched away.
Another thing that I want to mention is, China will never be 'Westernized', it will instead to be 'Modernized'. And you can clearly see modernization everywhere in China during these 7 years.
In fact, for me, the word 'Westernized' is pretty arrogant: It assumes the 'West' should set the rule and standard for the world. And you just can't assume that, just like you can't assume all your neighbors one day will follow the exact schedule like you do. They just don't.
Also, about Han[0]'s superiority: First thing is, you maybe don't know that the Chinese government provide better benefits[1] to those ethnic minority groups than Han people did.
As a Han myself, I personally don't feel like that I'm superior than others. In fact, start from the kindergarten, we been educated to respect other ethnic groups and at least know what not to. For example: Don't eat pork in front of Hui[2] people.
Yes, many people still don't completely understand all those rules or just don't care about it after they grown up, but you can't deny the education is there.
Even there is superiority between Han and other ethnic groups, then that would be very similar as in C++ programmer vs PHP programmer, rather than black vs white.
Then, about Uyghurs[3]. To be honest, I don't fully understand the problem there. But I think the tight control that the government has implemented there is at some part due some terrorist attacks[4][5][6][7][8](are originated from Xinjiang). And you can think of how many pressure the center government has pushed on Xinjiang's administration, so maybe that's why they did something that not so civilized.
I'm not saying it's understandable or forgivable, they are not resolving problem from the root there. What I'm trying to say is: Maybe things happened in Xinjiang was not about ethnic superiority as some west people may think it is.
This would be truly revolutionary if used in inner-city American public schools. Just imagine how much more efficiently punishment could be doled out to the largely-delinquent kids in these schools...behavior and compliance would improve substantially, I bet.
28 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 71.1 ms ] threadIn a way I'm relieved the West is lagging behind on this but I found the whole article very worrying indeed. Individual digital rights have never been more urgent or important in the West to delineate 'free' society, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness etc...
These Chinese surveillance state stories are all really tame compared to the abuses of the American program.
You are wrong.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...
The Chinese program is about homeland security and domestic stability.
I am completely and entirely correct.
> In 2014, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.”
> According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.”
> “When I learned about signature strikes, that was incredible,” Faisal says. “If the criteria is being armed or having a beard – that is everyone in Yemen.”
1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
Chinese concentration camps and black jails are at the level of WWII era horrors. They disappear people around the world just by sending made up arrest request and taking them to China.
Drone assassination program, kills based off metadata score.
Global rendition and torture program. Largest prison population on the planet, exhibiting UN criticized torture, forced sterilization.
China:
Has no drone assassination program. Does not kill based off metadata score.
National rendition program.
Tortures, disappears, organ harvest, forced rendition from foreign countries based on mass and metadata in thousands or tens of thousands peer year (ethnicity, gender, number of foreign phone calls, or family members outside country). People in concentration camps are executed "on demand" in order to provide organs to recipients.
But at least your argument has a strong thesis.
You'll never see Fox News or MSNBC take it seriously (Except when it touches identity politics, like gun registries. Then, all of a sudden, it's a huge issue! Imagine, the government having a record of all gun owners!)
Of all the NSA revelations, it was the least controversial one. It was a glorified fax machine.
False. You see it all the time.
> ... even though it is far more extensive and aggressive than China.
Not sure I buy that, either. The US may be more aggressive in terms of information collected, and in terms of global scope. It's less aggressive than China in terms of being used to control the lives of the entire population of the country, though.
But really keep focusing on China. Have a feeling this strategy will work great for you.
I'm not sure that's true.
NSA and other US domestic surveillance capabilities feed the information it gathers passively (they call it "strategic listening") for DoD to understand how to influence entire countries, continents, world opinion.
For example, DARPA has a current program called SMISC: "Social Media in Strategic Communication" - where they are studying next generation technologies for determining how information and opinions spread by social media for US intelligence and military botnets and troll armies to influence opinions at scale. This is just a small evolution over the information domination US intelligence and security has applied domestically and globally for decades.
The Guardian and The Intercept both did exactly that (which is why you know about the Cisco/NSA thing by the way). I believe French and German newspapers also did something similar.
Sesame Credit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI
I highly recommend Martin Jacques' Ted talk [0] on this very subject from over 7 years ago. I believe this aspect of Chinese culture -- of treating the state as being a BIG part of your daily life -- is super important to grasp if one wishes to get a sense of Chinese thinking and way-of-life.
It's also a starting point if one wishes to imagine how a future China might turn out to be.
[0] https://youtu.be/imhUmLtlZpw
Well, for me, it's just like to saying "Oh, Chinese people just do that sometimes".
It's a quite ignorant view actually, because when you look at Taiwan and Hongkong, it's very easy to found that Chinese people can adapt to many systems rather than the 'good' old authoritarianism.
Mainland China current running by the Communist Party is actually because of many historical reason, rather than a choice of Chinese people.
Also, one thing some people from the west don't understand that the Chinese government lead by the CCP also generates many many benefits to the Chinese people, and doing a not-bad job protecting their citizens. And those benefits are not easy to be ditched away.
Another thing that I want to mention is, China will never be 'Westernized', it will instead to be 'Modernized'. And you can clearly see modernization everywhere in China during these 7 years.
In fact, for me, the word 'Westernized' is pretty arrogant: It assumes the 'West' should set the rule and standard for the world. And you just can't assume that, just like you can't assume all your neighbors one day will follow the exact schedule like you do. They just don't.
Also, about Han[0]'s superiority: First thing is, you maybe don't know that the Chinese government provide better benefits[1] to those ethnic minority groups than Han people did.
As a Han myself, I personally don't feel like that I'm superior than others. In fact, start from the kindergarten, we been educated to respect other ethnic groups and at least know what not to. For example: Don't eat pork in front of Hui[2] people.
Yes, many people still don't completely understand all those rules or just don't care about it after they grown up, but you can't deny the education is there.
Even there is superiority between Han and other ethnic groups, then that would be very similar as in C++ programmer vs PHP programmer, rather than black vs white.
Then, about Uyghurs[3]. To be honest, I don't fully understand the problem there. But I think the tight control that the government has implemented there is at some part due some terrorist attacks[4][5][6][7][8](are originated from Xinjiang). And you can think of how many pressure the center government has pushed on Xinjiang's administration, so maybe that's why they did something that not so civilized.
I'm not saying it's understandable or forgivable, they are not resolving problem from the root there. What I'm trying to say is: Maybe things happened in Xinjiang was not about ethnic superiority as some west people may think it is.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China#Gua...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Kashgar_attack
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Tiananmen_Square_attack
[7] [dead] maroonmed ↗ This would be truly revolutionary if used in inner-city American public schools. Just imagine how much more efficiently punishment could be doled out to the largely-delinquent kids in these schools...behavior and compliance would improve substantially, I bet.