Photo: Louise Delmotte Associated Press Surveillance cameras on the Great Wall of China in Beijing
Isabel Kua – Agence France-Presse in Lianyungang
Published yesterday at 10:29
- Asia
Cutting-edge security cameras, ultra-reliable DNA testing technology, facial recognition software… At a forum this week, China showcased its surveillance prowess, determined to export it around the world.
Law enforcement officials from around 100 countries took part in the Global Forum on Public Security Cooperation in Lianyungang, east China. The event included demonstrations by dozens of Chinese companies, many of which are linked to the crackdown in Xinjiang that NGOs have denounced.
China is one of the most heavily monitored societies on the planet, with millions of cameras installed on its streets and a facial recognition system widely used across its territory.
This surveillance network serves a dual purpose: to combat crime, on the one hand, but also to prevent any possible challenge to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In opening the forum, Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong stressed that over the past year, the Chinese police have trained 2,700 officers from the stranger.
Over the next 12 months, it plans to do so for another 3,000.
This is “clearly a sign that China wants to export” its policing and surveillance techniques, says Bethany Allen, an expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“Beijing is hoping to normalise and legitimise its style of policing and […] the authoritarian political system in which it operates,” she adds.
“Rapidly locating a target”
And “the more countries that can learn from the Chinese model, the fewer countries will be willing to criticise such a state-first, state-centric approach.” “repression”.
In the aisles, Chinese companies proudly display their law enforcement tools.
One of them, Caltta Technologies, is helping Mozambique set up an “incident response platform,” using “big data” to “rapidly locate a target.”
Telecoms giant Huawei says it has deployed its “Public Security Solution” in more than 100 countries and regions, including Kenya and Saudi Arabia.
Huawei has been under sanctions since 2019 by the United States, which accuses it of spying for the Chinese authorities.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000SDIC Intelligence Xiamen Information (formerly Meiya Pico) has also been sanctioned by Washington for developing an application “designed to track sound and image files, location data and messages on […] phones mobile”.
In 2018, the U.S. Treasury said that residents of Xinjiang “are required to download a desktop version of” the app “to allow authorities to monitor illegal activity.”
China has been accused of incarcerating more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a charge it has consistently denied.
At the company’s booth, representatives show off advanced facial recognition tools that can sharpen blurry images to better identify suspects.
“If you have a fugitive,” the restoration software “even shows if there’s a gap between their teeth,” one boasts.
Another exhibitor, The Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Public Security unveils high-tech equipment for DNA testing.
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“Learning from China”
This institute was also sanctioned in 2020 by the United States, which cut off its access to certain American technologies, considering it “complicit of human rights violations and abuses.”
A sanction since lifted, as part of cooperation efforts between Beijing and Washington to combat fentanyl trafficking.
At the Lianyungang forum, several foreign delegations interviewed by AFP were enthusiastic.
“We can learn from China,” says Sydney Gabela, a major general in the South African police, who wants to “see the new technologies that have come out, so that we can deploy them in South Africa.”
“We came to establish contacts and start training,” says Colonel Galo Erazo of the Ecuadorian police. So “either Chinese police officers will go to Ecuador or Ecuadorian police officers will come to China.”
A way for Beijing to extend its aura in the world, underlines Sheena Greitens, an expert at the University of Texas.
“The training and advice provided to police services is a means increasingly used by China to exert its influence and shape its security environment abroad,” she observes.
Which, incidentally, provides some valuable insight into “how local security forces—often deployed on China's periphery or in regions that Beijing considers strategically important—perceive the security environment.”
“These initiatives can give China leverage within the security apparatus in the event of a threat to Chinese interests.”