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submitted 3 months ago by Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org to c/world@quokk.au

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/42071793

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China runs the largest digital surveillance apparatus on earth.

[...]

Many in China hardly notice the country’s millions of cameras. But for the tens of thousands under watch, it’s an invisible digital cage, tracking and restricting their movement.

Among them are the Yang family, living in rural eastern Jiangsu province. Caught in a land dispute, they’ve been trying to seek relief from local officials by appealing to China’s central government in Beijing. But this surveillance apparatus based on American technology monitors and predicts their every move, flagging them for detention every time they try to go to the Chinese capital.

Yang Guoliang lives alone, a virtual prisoner in his own house. His wife and younger daughter were arrested last year and now face trial for disrupting the work of the Chinese state — a crime carrying a sentence of up to a decade in prison.

[...]

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[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Honestly it is darkly hilarious how much warhawks have been gravely telling me to be scared of China my whole life to then see headlines like this.

No, it is the US, my own country, that terrifies me for its embrace of authoritarianism, subjugation and oppression.

“Because of this technology … we have no freedom at all, sooner or later, Americans and others, too, will lose their freedoms.” — Yang Caiying

...

https://apnews.com/article/chinese-surveillance-silicon-valley-uyghurs-tech-xinjiang-8e000601dadb6aea230f18170ed54e88

Over the past quarter century, American tech companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known, an Associated Press investigation found. They sold billions of dollars of technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, despite repeated warnings from the U.S. Congress and in the media that such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities.

Critically, American surveillance technologies allowed a brutal mass detention campaign in the far west region of Xinjiang — targeting, tracking and grading virtually the entire native Uyghur population to forcibly assimilate and subdue them

[-] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago

The US has been gaining ground, especially this year, but China with its long history as a dictatorship is far ahead. It is nevertheless China - not the US - that is "targeting, tracking and grading virtually the entire native Uyghur population to forcibly assimilate and subdue them."

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The US has been gaining ground, especially this year but

That is a MASSIVE understatement and it calls into question why you feel the need to so desperately handwave away US complicity and participation in this?

[-] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago

I don't handwave away anything. It is the Chinese party-state that is applying this surveillance tech, and China is also (re-)exporting surveillance technology to at least 5 other autocracies. We must not downplay neither.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Ok and from the perspective of the US the authoritarian forces I am subject to are happily engaged with earning money hand over fist bringing this kind of surveillance to the entire world.

It is the Chinese party-state that is applying this surveillance tech

Ok... it is US companies that are profiting off of it?

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/09/the-us-is-now-the-largest-investor-in-commercial-spyware/

The United States has emerged as the largest investor in commercial spyware—a global industry that has enabled the covert surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, diplomats, and others, posing grave threats to human rights and national security.

In 2024, 20 new US-based spyware investors were identified, bringing the total number of American backers of this technology to 31. This growth has largely outpaced other major investing countries such as Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom, according to a new report published today by the Atlantic Council.

[-] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 months ago

Some time ago I read a comment. I don't remember where and by whom, but they called the approach, "The West bad, China bad okay." You appear to permanently (and rightfully) criticizing the US, but ignore or at least play down China's atrocities.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You appear to permanently (and rightfully) criticizing the US, but ignore or at least play down China's atrocities.

Provide evidence I am ignoring or downplaying China's atrocities or don't casually make the claim.

On the contrary I am putting the context of what drives this authoritarianism into center view with regards to how my part of the world impacts it.

[-] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 months ago
[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago
[-] doben@lemmy.wtf 2 points 3 months ago

You must understand that you are argueing with a (likely) paid western propagandist, eerily similar to accounts paid to do hasbara for Israel. 

While they claim, that you criticise the US, but let China (could be Russia, too) off the hook („do you also criticise China, like „do you condemn hamas“), they are the one initiating the China critique, while ignoring every ounce of responsibility of the worlds hegemon, the USA.

You won‘t get an honest or balanced or well informed take from @hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org, but only one of extreme western bias and smear against the west‘s current main adversaries, Russia and China.

It‘s all they do, that‘s the sole purpose of the account.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah it is just embarassing how obvious it is, I have no interest in defending another empire, my point is how useless the one note warhawk mentality/analysis is.

Rightwing people have been telling me to be afraid of commie red China my whole life because they hate freedom and wait... this whole time rightwing US authoritarian surveillance capitalist companies have been selling China the necessary infrastructure of oppression to make this vision a reality?

I ask, as a USian, who should I actually be concerned with as a threat?

this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
28 points (100.0% liked)

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