Digital dictatorship in China - Xi Jinping style

The emerging contours of the Chinese data control nightmare

 Digital dictatorship in China - Xi Jinping style

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• A point of friction: Tesla's Elon Musk said in 2021 that Tesla cars were not being used to spy on China. He said that if Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, it would be shut down. The Chinese government had banned Tesla cars from entering military compounds, but Musk insisted that the data collected by sensors fitted to Teslas was always handled confidentially.
• Times have changed: China has pushed new regulations and policies designed to strengthen data security, reinforcing the control it exercises over huge volumes of data. It is the vision of Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to build what analysts call a “techno-authoritarian superpower” in which people are monitored and directed through government-controlled cyber networks, surveillance systems and algorithms. It's a dystopia, in short.
• The official claim: China claims that with better control over data, it cannot only build a more productive economy, but also a more efficient government that makes decisions based on hard science rather than intuition. The embrace of digital sovereignty plays a key role in protecting our national interest against enemy forces at home and abroad.
• Control and some more: Xi’s data vision has always stressed control. In 2013, he said that “whoever controls data has the upper hand”. A year later he said that control of information has become an important aspect of a country’s “soft power and competitiveness”. The official classification of data in 2020 as a “fifth factor of production”, alongside labour, land, capital and technology, further revealed its importance.
• Where data comes from: Personal data is collected not only through online interactions but also through a whole panoply of technologies designed to order a society of 1.4bn people. Digital social security cards, digital money, smart cities, surveillance cameras, social credit systems and other technologies are being rolled out across the country, creating a grand experiment for 21st century authoritarian governance.

1. All this forms a contrast with the Maoist echoes in Xi’s current political rhetoric.
2. He has exhorted the country to prize “common prosperity”, while denouncing “big capitalists” and the entertainment industry’s “sissy-boy stars”.
3. When it comes to data and technology, Xi appears to be unveiling the blueprint for a modern, high-tech dictatorship.
4. China believes that technologies will shore up social control and suppress political dissent without damping the entrepreneurial vigour or the innovation that animate the world’s fastest-growing large economy. That may be a big mistake!

• Corporates may be hit badly: In order to capture such troves of data, China has adopted a multipronged strategy. It is publishing laws to govern data’s use. It is increasing the state’s access to the data of private companies and collecting vast data inventories itself. Algorithms should, the draft law says, “orient towards mainstream values” and “actively transmit positive energy”. They should support the messaging of the Chinese Communist party.

1. The hardening of China’s legal regime around data usage is causing severe disruptions for multinationals operating in China, large Chinese corporations and the financial markets.
2. One law, the Personal Information Protection Law, which is due to take effect in November '21, stipulates that data being moved out of China must either pass a security assessment by the Cyberspace Administration of China, a government regulator, or obtain other forms of official approval.
3. Another law which came into effect in September, the Data Security Law, requires the protection of “important data” and “core data”, the latter of which is defined as information involving national and economic security, people’s welfare or important public interest. The definitions are so broad, they could cover almost anything related to private data.
4. All this leaves multinationals operating in China with little choice but to establish data centres to keep all their customer data.

• China loves Microsoft: The foreign company held up most often by Chinese officials as a “model” of how multinationals should behave is Microsoft. The US tech giant already has four data centres in mainland China, all operated by local partner 21Vianet, and a fifth is due to go live next year. Asked if data from its platforms — such as the professional networking platform LinkedIn — can be accessed in unencrypted form by Chinese authorities, Microsoft added: “Microsoft commits to follow all laws and regulations applicable to its provision of online services.”
• Techno-authoritarian state: One weakness of all authoritarian systems has been an information logjam between grassroots society and the ruling elite. The former Soviet Union (USSR) fell as much because of petty corruption and endemic shortages of basic goods as because of its expensive cold war rivalry with the US. China’s leaders believe they have found a way to avoid such threats to their hold on power as a result of the trove of data they now control.

1. Experts claim the CCP has overcome the information acquisition problem, thanks in large part to the digital ecosystems it has established
2. today’s China is more perceptive of public opinion, less prone to policy blunders and better equipped to manage its own bloated bureaucracy
3. Some technologies form basic building blocks. The installation of an estimated 415m surveillance cameras all over the country — with densities of over 8,000 cameras per square mile in cities such as the southern manufacturing hub of Shenzhen — makes China’s population by far the world’s most surveilled
4. But the use of facial recognition technologies to identify individuals as they walk down the street does not appear to be popular

• Final control: But the biggest control coming is the digital renminbi, undergoing tests in several cities this year and ready for a formal launch after Winter Olympics 2021. All transactions will be traceable in real time, providing a state surveillance capability that does not exist anywhere. Beijing can trace potential criminals, crack down on money laundering and combat official corruption.
• Orwell redeemed: Xi Jinping has settled on the ideas written about by George Orwell in "1984", the dystopian novel in which the omnipresent eyes of the party and its ruler, Big Brother, use information superiority to keep subjects in check.
• EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the potential Orwellian implication of the digital renminbi. (2) What is the ultimate goal of Xi Jinping, in his crackdown on big technology firms? Explain.
  

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