China's digital nightmare
How China's authoritarian rulers exploit digital technology to consolidate their power
It seems like just yesterday that China — best understood in its own eyes as the center of the universe — was a magnet for embarrassing Sino-envy from Western analysts gushing over its efficiency, its environmentalism, and its dedication to global markets. But reality is setting in, shattering one of the West's most dangerous illusions: that China was anywhere close to adopting the Western norms and values that "count."
In fact, we should all be afraid of China — very afraid.
Sure, Beijing has embraced everything from Marxism to crony capitalism to the latest and greatest technology. But it has turned all those things to what's now a naked, headlong pursuit of a society unfree to an unprecedented degree.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
You've probably heard by now of China's new social credit system, which makes it harder for rule breakers to access money, transportation, and other essentials. (Yes, it's just like that episode of Black Mirror, only real.) But it gets much worse.
How much worse? Government workers are now being equipped with brainbots that harvest and report on their innermost feelings. The "lightweight, wireless sensors," as the South China Morning Post has observed, "constantly monitor the wearer's brainwaves and stream the data to computers that use artificial intelligence algorithms to detect emotional spikes such as depression, anxiety, or rage."
This is extraordinarily unsettling.
Meanwhile, the absolute rule of Xi Jinping has brought China's world-class tech firms to heel, using the popular WeChat app as a surveillance and enforcement online and off. Prisoners, ethnic minorities, and beleaguered activists are guinea pigs for the new regime in all its totalitarian power. From facial recognition to mandatory smartphone uploads, China's government is proving that digital technology has little attachment to the shiny happy liberal view of science and social progress.
China is also proving that absolutely nothing can stand in its way. While Americans mire themselves in debates over whether a Chinese-styled prom dress counts as racist appropriation, China's scientists and armed forces are winning the race to deploy satellites equipped with "unhackable" quantum internet technology. In another feat with clear military applications, a Chinese drone company has set the world record for simultaneous unmanned flights — 1,374, to be precise.
While the Western approach to digital life is yielding widespread social stagnation and despair, China is taking advantage in other ways. Its gangs have established a new model of global drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, laundering money in Vancouver's cornered market back into factories in the homeland. Even the popular Western cartoon character Peppa Pig has been banned, targeted for her role in Chinese memes associated with insufficiently striving and conformist Chinese youths.
And what can we do? Not much. Our elites have barely adjusted to the unfolding shock that the internet can't be stopped from organizing deplorable people churning out deplorable content — and moving dangerous habits and ideas into the real political world.
While the Western establishment decries China's digital dystopia, it simultaneously drifts ever closer to adopting a "China lite" approach to online policing, one in which government-approved algorithms suppress officially unacceptable speech and images around the clock, forever.
Most sobering of all, none of this baleful news can be pinned on the presidency of Donald Trump. Western elites, and the idealistic managerial and interpretive class they employ, stubbornly insist that democracy dies in darkness. This year, China has thrown a stark and unforgiving light on a much more horrific possibility: No matter who or how we regulate, democracy dies in digital.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
James Poulos is a contributing editor at National Affairs and the author of The Art of Being Free, out January 17 from St. Martin's Press. He has written on freedom and the politics of the future for publications ranging from The Federalist to Foreign Policy and from Good to Vice. He fronts the band Night Years in Los Angeles, where he lives with his son.
-
'Election Day. Finally.'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Incendiary device plot: Russia's 'rehearsals' for attacks on transatlantic flights
The Explainer Security officials warn of widespread Moscow-backed 'sabotage campaign' in retaliation for continued Western support for Ukraine
By The Week UK Published
-
Outer Hebrides: a top travel destination
The Week Recommends Discover 'unspoiled beauty' of the Western Isles
By Tess Foley-Cox Published
-
Has the Taliban banned women from speaking?
Today's Big Question 'Rambling' message about 'bizarre' restriction joins series of recent decrees that amount to silencing of Afghanistan's women
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Cuba's energy crisis
The Explainer Already beset by a host of issues, the island nation is struggling with nationwide blackouts
By Rebekah Evans, The Week UK Published
-
Putin's fixation with shamans
Under the Radar Secretive Russian leader, said to be fascinated with occult and pagan rituals, allegedly asked for blessing over nuclear weapons
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Chimpanzees are dying of human diseases
Under the radar Great apes are vulnerable to human pathogens thanks to genetic similarity, increased contact and no immunity
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies hang over Sydney's Mardi Gras
The Explainer Police officer, the former partner of TV presenter victim, charged with two counts of murder after turning himself in
By Austin Chen, The Week UK Published
-
Quiz of The Week: 24 February - 1 March
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Will mounting discontent affect Iran election?
Today's Big Question Low turnout is expected in poll seen as crucial test for Tehran's leadership
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Sweden clears final NATO hurdle with Hungary vote
Speed Read Hungary's parliament overwhelmingly approved Sweden's accession to NATO
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published