China Decoded is Newsweek’s in-depth newsletter about China’s growing influence on the world. It goes beyond the headlines to examine how Beijing thinks, how its policies travel beyond China’s borders, and what they mean for the United States and its allies. The newsletter is written by journalists with deep experience covering China.
Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Senior Correspondent for International Affairs and Investigations, has reported extensively on Chinese politics, influence and security. John Feng, China Editor, is based in Taiwan and covers China’s domestic politics, foreign policy and the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington. Below, for Newsweek Members, we are reproducing the latest edition of China Decoded in full: The Communist Party’s quest to surveil and control the people of China may be most important for it on the edges of empire, where Beijing’s presence is far away and the least logical—the vast borderlands of Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and, in a political sense, Hong Kong.
The CCP wants Taiwan on that list but hasn’t succeeded yet. That quest is girded in Orwellian language, as a new report by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) shows. Monitoring the Frontier: Chinese Digital Surveillance Projects in Tibet, the Uyghur Region, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong, by Mishel Kondi, looks at the digital surveillance deployed by the Ministry of Public Security and other parts of China’s enormous security apparatus through the lens of more than 300,000 government and company procurement records.
The documents were located by searching for terms commonly used within the system. The following language reflects some of those terms. They are real concepts and categories and translate into things happening to people on the ground.
Let’s start with the need to “Eliminate Unseen Threats,” no doubt helped by the “Identification of Non-Han Persons Including an Independent Alarm.” (Please note my irony alert is on 11 here, meaning, it doesn’t go higher). With “11 types and 59 kinds of key persons” needing to be watched, “Untrustworthy Persons” may require a “Become a Family Campaign.” Don’t forget about those “Persons Who Went Abroad and Did Not Return.” Even if they want to forget you, which they probably do. Ensuring “Four Standards for Monks and Nuns” in Tibet is easier when there are “Copper Ramparts, Iron Walls” to fall back on.
Do some soul-searching; where do you fall within “Three Illegals and One Product”? If the “Soul Casting Engineering Project” doesn’t help you to “Scrape the Bones to Remove the Poison,” try the “North Desert Camel Bell Border Patrol Team.” Or perhaps the “Internet Light Cavalry” could help. Know, ungrateful person, that you can “Feel the Party’s Kindness and Follow the Party.” Don’t forget the “Four Emphases and Four Loves.” But love can only go so far.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
