Orwellian state: How the party controls the life of China’s people
It’s not the revolution that will be televised but rather the exercise of control that is
In late January the Chinese government quarantined the city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, in an attempt to control the spread of the then un-named coronavirus
(COVID-19).
Wuhan is not some undeveloped inland city.
For centuries it consisted of three towns (Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang), which straddled both the Yangtze and Han rivers, and was a significant hub in central China. The modern conglomerated entity of around 11 million people has a proud, extensive history.
That officials in Beijing shut down a metropolis shows at once the grave concerns of the government and yet also the capacity of the state to exercise control. Individuals that fall foul of the state, as for instance human rights lawyers or religious groups, can attest to the long and intrusive arms of the government, as shown by the mass detention of Muslims in Xinjiang.
To many outside China, however, the naked exercise of power has been stark. It is also a reminder that for all of China’s glittering manifestations of ultra-modernity, it is still run by a government that readily unsheathes the steel within its glove.
Foreign journalism often comments on this authoritarianism, especially when churches are demolished, crosses are torn down or legal activists are kept under house arrest.
What can be under-remarked is that the steel does not have to be brandished for the general populace to know that it is there.
The influences that can be exerted through the constant presence of tools of authority make this power almost absolute. It also explains the party’s capacity to maintain its rule.
The exercise of control
As the world watches on while the government builds hospitals in a week, it is timely to consider how the exercise of control plays out in the lives of ordinary people.
Three main factors are worth mentioning: one, the multi-layered bureaucratic controls, two, the capacity to roll out even hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground at any given time in the remotest of places and then finally, the all-pervasive cameras that provide the data which can be amassed into profiles for every single individual. There are other means of exercising control — as for instance the Great Firewall — but at the time of this health epidemic these bear mentioning.
Exercising political control through administrative means is not a new phenomenon, and dates back to the time of the earliest emperors, and no government could deliver essential services without some widespread management system.
Where it impacts the lives of ordinary citizens in a manner which impinges upon a human’s right to privacy, freedom of movement and freedom of association is that the detailing of every aspect of a person’s life makes it possible to control the very choices a person does make.
Citizens in China know well that their daily routine is monitored.
This is from where they live and with whom (because of their household registration), what internet sites they seek to access (because of internet regulations and the need to provide identification if they use an internet café), how they commute to work (because their license plate is tagged at toll-booths and via traffic cameras), and which cities they visit (because of identification checks at airports and train and bus stations), to name only a few.
This constant tracking of ordinary life not only means almost every act is able to be linked to an individual quite quickly, it also means that people often choose not to get involved in anything that might be seen as suspicious. One by-product of an omniscient administration is that the watched end up becoming the watchers, yet in the end not of the agents of control but rather of themselves. Registration thus becomes its own form of tacit suppression.
CCTV security cameras seen in Shenzhen, China.(shutterstock.com photo)
CCTV security cameras seen in Shenzhen, China.(shutterstock.com photo)
When the state is everywhere
Were an individual to engage in so-called subversive acts then representatives of the government are empowered to stamp out such acts quickly. The ubiquity of state actors can be overlooked because of their very omnipresence.
While this is evident in the notices at the end of every residential alleyway indicating that Officer Wang or Liu is responsible for such small stretches of China’s domain, this overarching power is on display in grand fashion at the daily flag-lowering ceremony held in Tiananmen Square.
Once the formalities are over, state actors clear the thousands of spectators from the Square in minutes. The same citizens encouraged to gather are then loudly forced to disperse.
Members of the Police, the People’s Armed Police, Public Security Department, soldiers and even plain-clothes agents are employed to keep control. When the state wishes to exercise its power, be this soft or hard, it has the personnel to do so.
(shutterstock.com photo)
(shutterstock.com photo)
Digital totalitarianism
Finally, much has been written of China’s use of internet surveillance and the social credit system. These are all powerful tools but the cameras in every location are even more powerful still because of their very un-remarked presence. In Tiananmen Square the clusters of cameras on lampposts hang like so many colonies of bats but forgotten is the multitude of cameras that record vision elsewhere.
There are security cameras in subways, on traffic lights, in department stores, in malls and on large streets. But there are also cameras on vending machines, which use facial recognition to sell soft drink cans, on pedestrian crossings that tell an individual to pause before crossing and at airports that allow one to check in.
It is not the revolution that will be televised but rather the exercise of control that is.
Thus, while the panic caused by COVID-19 has certainly reminded the world of the extent of China’s systems of control, it is important to remember too its daily exercise of power over its citizens, by mundane yet extensive means.
Candida Jin* is an expert in Chinese religious history and contemporary culture and has worshiped in churches throughout mainland China, as well as throughout Asia. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of LiCAS.news.
*Penname used for security reasons.
© Copyright MMXX LiCAS.news
Built with Shorthand