The VOA “Media on China program” published an article on China’s surveillance capability. It refers to how China is just like the totalitarian society in the fiction story 1984 written by George Orwell in which “Big Brother” monitors every move, spoken word, and thought of all members of society while it uses the same monitor to broadcast its propaganda. Below is a partial translation of the article:
In the western world the law often prohibits the government from launching surveillance of its citizen. The government is not allowed to arrest or sentence its citizens using information that has been obtained illegally. In China the government can use its resources to monitor or arrest its citizens. To many people, China is best known for its Internet surveillance efforts because the resources that the Chinese government has invested in Internet surveillance surpass those of any other country in the world. China has the capability of monitoring its citizens 24 hours a day because it has the largest surveillance network in the world. In 2017, there was one surveillance camera for every eight citizens; by 2020 there will be one surveillance camera for every two citizens. These camera heads are equipped with the capability of facial recognition. With the help of tech companies such as Ten Cent, the Chinese authorities control and screen a large amount of surveillance information. We Chat, which Ten Cent developed, assists the Chinese authorities in censoring sensitive political information or social media while sharing the customer’s information with the police. Meanwhile people can no longer remain anonymous online. Starting in 2013, when the Chinese authorities required that every cell phone should be under each citizen’s real name, every We Chat account had to be linked to a cell phone number.
Source: Voice of America, January 3, 2018
https://www.voachinese.com/a/china-big-borther-comes-20180103/4191187.html