China’s Surveillance State is Triggering a Digital Cold War

U.S. foreign policy-makers should target China’s control of the internet as a top priority.

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai’s disappearance was the social media equivalent of an 8.0 earthquake. For the first time in a long time, American eyes were drawn to China’s dystopian surveillance system. Yet, this story has already become obsolete, without any Chinese concessions. Shuai remains missing.

In the past few months, headlines have called attention to China’s quick cover-up of Shuai’s #metoo confession regarding the former vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli. Any mention of Shuai’s story was completely removed from social media and even private messaging groups within 30 minutes of her original confession.

The story, however, should not have come as a surprise to the media, nor the American public. China has long been cracking down on political dissent shared via social media. The nation’s development of its surveillance has reached terrifying levels in recent years: by 2015, the nation’s surveillance camera system, SkyNet, had already reached 100% coverage of Beijing. Near-instant facial recognition technology allows Beijing to monitor all of the movements and behaviors of its citizens with an unprecedented level of precision and detail. China’s Great Firewall project further employs millions in the crime of regulating, censoring, and slowing down domestic internet traffic. That plus the nation’s exclusive use of domestic social media platforms means that China has achieved the great dream of many an authoritarian state — an independent, or “sovereign,” internet.

Russia could only dream of attaining such a status. While other illiberal democracies might quake in the face of social media scandals, China shamelessly uses its control of the internet to shut down scandals on the domestic playing field. After a while, international media gets desensitized and moves on from the Peng Shuais of the world.

However, China’s surveillance state poses a real and tangible threat to the United States. The nation’s dystopia means that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a tight grip on the peoples’ ability to spread ideas or even think freely. A basic review of survey data from the World Values Survey demonstrates that Chinese people have submitted to lower democratic values and no longer understand democracy for what it is today, due to stringent censorship measures.

For instance, the data demonstrated that, in China, the people greatly support democracy, however they believe that their government is democratic on the whole, even though China is an illiberal democracy. Meanwhile, the people showed altered perceptions of democracy with the belief that the government has the right to conduct surveillance and limit the privacy of the internet, or that the majority of Chinese journalists and media are uninvolved in corruption. In fact, there are no privately owned TV or radio stations in China according to the CIA World Factbook, and the Central Propaganda Department ensures that all domestic media outlets must gain approval from the government for all programming, so these beliefs are deeply misguided.

What is particularly troubling, besides the rights violations, is the fact that China is already in the process of selling and exporting these technologies to other illiberal regimes — 18 countries are already implementing this system. China is considered a “major exporter of broadcasting equipment world-wide” according to the CIA World Factbook’s 2020 data.

This approach to the internet and surveillance technologies demonstrates China’s intention to degrade global internet freedom and public unity on social issues. The CCP aims to restrict the flow of information not just in its own country but abroad. The party hopes to spearhead this movement — one can only imagine the control that such surveillance powers will leave to China on an international scale.

China’s flashy new tools for social control and surveillance are here to stay and to spread. The United States should brace itself for a long-term battle for internet freedom and democracy in what could be the next Cold War.

- Celeste Abourjeili