(0:00) Over the past decades, the Chinese government has built a high-tech surveillance system (0:05) with seemingly extraordinary sophistication. (0:09) Facial recognition software, internet monitoring, and ubiquitous video cameras (0:15) give the impression that the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, has finally achieved the dream (0:21) of every dictator, which is to build a surveillance state as imagined in George Orwell's book 1984. (0:27) A high-tech surveillance network now covers the entire country.
(0:32) And the power of this system was fully displayed in November 2022, when national protests (0:38) against Covid lockdowns in China shocked the party. (0:43) Although protesters were careful to hide their faces with masks and hats, (0:48) the police used cellphone location data to track them down and then (0:54) sent thousands to prison. (0:55) But in reality, Beijing's surveillance state is not just a technological achievement.
(1:00) It also relies on an offline organization based on a true army of spies, (1:07) agents, and informants. (1:09) I'm sure this video will make you concerned about your online privacy. (1:16) If you want to ensure that you are not being watched on the internet, you need to do (1:22) like me and use Surfshark.
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(3:33) Well folks, click the link in the description, use the ROCKHOC coupon, my coupon, and subscribe (3:40) to Surfshark. (3:41) Over the past eight decades, the Communist Party has built a vast network of millions (3:46) of informants and spies whose work has been critical to the regime's survival. (3:52) It is these men and women, more than cameras or artificial intelligence, that have enabled (3:57) Beijing to crush all kinds of opposition in the country.
(4:01) Without a network of this size, the entire notorious technological system simply wouldn't work. (4:07) Let's delve deeper into this issue and particularly understand it in light of the (4:12) new difficulties China faces. (4:15) The Communist Party's state security system has worked very well for the (4:20) Party.
(4:21) However, as the country faces unprecedented economic difficulties, (4:26) this apparatus will be subject to new pressures and tensions. (4:31) The rulers may find it harder not only to maintain their technological dominance (4:36) but also to rely on the involvement of these civilian informants who act as the lifeblood of this surveillance regime. (4:45) China has two intelligence and espionage agencies.
(4:49) Both are in ministries. (4:50) The Ministry of State Security, abbreviated MSS, is responsible for external espionage (4:56) and internal counterintelligence. It does not spy on Chinese citizens except (5:03) when they are suspected of having foreign connections. (5:07) The second agency, the Political Security Protection Unit, within the Ministry (5:12) of Public Security, abbreviated MPS, is responsible for internal surveillance.
(5:19) The MPS includes specialized units as well as frontline patrol officers. (5:27) There is a clear division of work between the MSS and the MPS. (5:32) And they recruit informants separately.
(5:36) Beijing does not publish updated information about the MSS, although it was disclosed a (5:42) decade ago that the total number of uniformed police officers was about 2 million. (5:46) Today, it is likely that this number is moderately higher due to a larger budget for internal (5:52) security. (5:53) From now on, I will list for you various data about this security apparatus.
(5:58) Much of it comes from analyses by experts in the Chinese government's budget or from leaks (6:05) of confidential data. (6:07) Let's go. (6:08) Building a surveillance apparatus is a complex task for a dictatorship.
(6:12) Generations of Chinese rulers have tried to find a delicate balance between making (6:17) the secret police powerful enough to do their job but not so powerful (6:23) as to threaten the regime itself. (6:25) Although the Chinese have succeeded in this task, the resulting security apparatus (6:29) was not cheap. (6:31) In 2022, Beijing spent 1.44 trillion yuan, about $202 billion, on internal security.
(6:43) This category of expenses covers regular police, the MSS, the armed police, (6:50) courts, prosecutors, and prisons. (6:53) To give you an idea, this amount is very close to what China spends on external defense (6:58) affairs. (6:59) It is likely that this amount will increase as Beijing expands and updates its facial (7:06) recognition programs, Skynet and Sharp Eyes.
(7:10) Neither of these is cheap. (7:12) When Sharp Eyes was launched in 2016, Beijing spent $300 billion just on hardware (7:22) and installation. (7:23) To avoid creating a rival to its own power, the Communist Party has distributed surveillance (7:28) tasks to different units within the security forces and other state-affiliated actors, (7:33) a common practice in dictatorships.
(7:36) Putin, for example, does the same. (7:38) This organizational arrangement has two distinct advantages. (7:42) First, it prevents the formation of a powerful secret police that could control the flow (7:47) of information and become a threat to the party.
(7:50) Second, it allows the party to benefit from the involvement of state-owned enterprises, universities (7:57) and other entities that channel information to the government without increasing the size of the (8:02) secret police. (8:03) But this model requires highly refined, close coordination. (8:08) Therefore, the Communist Party maintains a political-legal committee that various organs participate (8:15) in and that has overall responsibility for internal security at all levels of the state.
(8:20) The Party controls the state even more by placing Communist Party officials in all (8:26) security units and imposing a five-year term limit for the top (8:32) security chiefs, including ministers of the MSS and MPS. (8:37) In the former Soviet Union and East Germany, there were no such limits. (8:41) Not surprisingly, the heads of the secret police in these regimes accumulated immense power.
(8:48) Speaking a little about the problems the Chinese face in this area, funding constraints (8:52) have long limited the Communist Party's ability to maintain a large (8:57) internal security force, as well as a well-paid, well-equipped elite secret police network. (9:02) A comparison with East Germany's Stasi is quite interesting. (9:06) Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Stasi was the largest secret police force (9:11) in the world relative to the population, with one officer for every 165 East German citizens.
(9:18) In addition, the Stasi had 189,000 informants, about 1.1% of the population. (9:25) The number of political security protection officers in China responsible for internal surveillance is, obviously, secret. (9:33) But leaked data suggest there are only between 60,000 and 100,000 of them, (9:41) which means we are talking at most one officer for every 14,000 Chinese citizens.
(9:48) As a consequence, the Communist Party needs a large organizational presence in state-affiliated social and economic institutions, as well as in local communities, to recruit a large number of informants. (10:01) These citizens can spy on their colleagues or neighbors, and since participation is guaranteed through coercion or other incentives, they don't cost the state that much. (10:11) Leaked data from 30 local governments show that between 0.73% and 1.1% of China's population (10:22) – we're talking about roughly 15 million people – act as informants.
(10:28) In addition to this number, the regular police and the secret police maintain separate networks (10:33) of paid spies and unpaid informants, whose exact numbers remain (10:38) secret. (10:39) The number of informants in communities and workplaces varies according to the (10:44) needs and discretion of local authorities. (10:47) In some universities, for example, each classroom has an informant who provides (10:52) a bi-weekly or monthly report to a supervisor, who is usually a party official.
(10:57) The intelligence generated by informants includes updates on (11:02) the activities of members of banned cults and underground religious groups and on (11:08) public reaction to major government policies or political events. (11:14) Analysis of the intelligence generated by each of these informants shows that only 40% (11:22) of them are active. (11:24) However, the awareness that classmates, coworkers, or neighbors (11:31) might be spies likely prevents ordinary people from engaging in activities (11:36) or speech that could get them into trouble.
(11:39) Chinese surveillance systems, established long before the advent of advanced (11:46) digital surveillance technologies, began as very labor-intensive systems and even (11:53) today, they remain so. (11:55) The most commonly used tactic by both the MSS and the MPS is what the party calls (12:02) controlling battlefield positions, which in practice means physically monitoring (12:09) critical public places such as airports, railway stations, and hotels, as well as (12:15) social institutions, particularly universities and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, (12:21) always looking for activities that pose threats to public security and, of course, (12:27) to the party. (12:28) Typically, controlling these battlefield positions involves frequent in-person (12:36) inspections by the police to ensure that these public places are keeping (12:41) records and reporting, identifying, and storing the identities and transactions of their clients, (12:49) in this case, the population of China.
(12:51) For example, the police frequently inspect cybercafés to confirm that the owners (12:58) are recording their customers' ID cards. (13:01) Leaked data suggests that about 40% of special intelligence personnel (13:09) recruited by the police are assigned to battlefield control functions. (13:14) Technology, with digitized information systems and video cameras, plays (13:20) a complementary but largely secondary role in this story.
(13:26) Another effective surveillance tactic is intimidating and monitoring people whom the CCP classifies as (13:34) key individuals. (13:36) These include members of banned cults and religious groups, protesters, people with mental illnesses, (13:42) and even drug users. (13:44) The police conduct door-knocking operations to check the physical location (13:49) of these people, intimidate them, and warn them against participating in undesirable activities (13:55) for the regime.
(13:55) Another method is to form a team of five people, usually a patrol officer, (14:02) a neighborhood committee official, a representative of the target individual's employer, a member (14:09) of the target's family, and an informant who has physical proximity to the target. (14:15) All this is to keep a close eye on potential troublemakers, especially (14:22) dissidents who might organize protests or travel to Beijing to embarrass local authorities. (14:29) Despite all the sophisticated and famous monitoring technologies, it is the organizational (14:36) capabilities of the Communist Party that enable its surveillance to function with (14:41) unrivaled potency.
(14:43) This is important because we notice in this model that it is not exportable to less organized autocracies, (14:49) with a superficial reach in their societies and economies. (14:55) To better understand this point, watch the video here on the channel where I talk (15:00) about revolutionary autocracies, and then you will understand the difference between these (15:05) autocracies and the breadth of control that one model can have over the other. (15:11) In short, these weaker, less deep dictatorships, with less penetration in society, (15:17) they can import Chinese hardware, but they cannot import Beijing's system, which means it is unlikely (15:23) they will develop surveillance capabilities (15:28) as efficient as China's.
(15:29) The Chinese surveillance state has been crucial in preventing the emergence of organized opposition (15:34) to the Communist Party in the post-Tiananmen era, but political stability has also been (15:40) a product of the generally high levels of economic growth in the country. (15:44) The Chinese surveillance state has yet to be tested in an unfavorable economic environment, (15:50) but such an environment is beginning to emerge. (15:53) The real estate bubble has burst, and approximately one in five young people is now unemployed (15:59) in the country.
(16:00) And to top it off, China's demographic bonus is completely gone. (16:04) Therefore, the demographic situation is very unfavorable for the country's economic development. (16:10) In short, these economic problems will affect the fiscal structure, the state's budget, (16:18) the money the state will have available and, in this case, especially, how much will (16:23) be left for Beijing to spend on the growing costs of maintaining and updating this (16:30) sophisticated high-tech surveillance system.
(16:34) This could be a particular problem for the Skynet and Sharp Eyes projects, which are (16:40) funded by heavily indebted local governments and, therefore, are likely to face increasing challenges (16:47) in the lean years to come. (16:51) The impact of a prolonged economic crisis will also create two problems for the Chinese offline surveillance apparatus. (16:59) First, unemployment, falling incomes, and diminishing opportunities will increase (17:04) public dissatisfaction, increasing the burden on security services as (17:11) more people engage in activities the party considers threatening.
(17:16) In other words, there will be more dissatisfied people, and the party will need even more informants (17:20) and an even larger structure to deal with more people threatening or attempting to overthrow (17:26) the party. (17:26) Secondly, growing discontent will make it more difficult to recruit new informants. (17:33) A declining surveillance state will pose various questions to Chinese rulers.
(17:39) Beijing may decide to treat its citizens better in the hope that this will limit protests. (17:45) Alternatively, the country's leaders may demand less from the security apparatus, which (17:50) currently targets many people who pose little or no real threat to the party's (17:56) government. (17:57) But the most likely outcome is that when soft repression through this surveillance (18:03) fails, the party will begin to use hard repression.
(18:07) The surveillance state may then be replaced by something much worse.
Professor Heni Ozi Cuckier (HOC)
Related Posts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5GyMPrZAA
https://blogdejoseoctaviodettmann.blogspot.com/2024/07/como-china-espiona-seus-cidadaos.html ((the original transcription, in portuguese)
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