By Benjamin Moore
The relentless aspiration of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for social control in China is no secret. As global health authorities attempt to respond to the threat of COVID-19, which has the potential to develop into a pandemic, the crisis may further entrench the CCP’s ability to keep tabs on its citizens and regulate their lives via technology and the acquisition of personal data. A very real threat now exists that efforts to supervise the Chinese population will be accelerated by the threat of the coronavirus even after the uncertainty has dissipated.
Indeed, the virus did not represent the first opportune moment for the CCP to exploit and expedite greater levels of control. As with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, deeper systems of surveillance creep, such as facial-recognition technology and phone monitoring, were introduced and have been maintained long after the purported vulnerabilities for which they were created cease to exist.
As with past instances, we are again witnessing a similar approach as China seeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus. A new color-coded QR code system, known as the Alipay Health Code, has been assigned to Chinese citizens in the Hangzhou region with the aim of helping people to identify those at risk of contracting the virus. This system, which is set to be rolled out nationally, assigns residents one of three colored QR codes: red, yellow or green. Residents with a green code will be permitted to move freely around the city, while those with a yellow code must self-quarantine at home for a period of 7 days. For those assigned a red code, self-quarantine at home must be undertaken for a longer duration of 14 days. Additionally, those with yellow and red codes are required to log in every day during quarantine before their codes can turn green.
In order to register for this system, citizens must submit their name, national identification number, phone number, and detailed answers to questions regarding their travel history and health status. It is at this point that the government works with a number of unidentified big data entities to rate each applicant’s status. In an effort to enforce these imperious measures in Hangzhou and embed them deeper into everyday life, the government requires companies, public transport, apartment complexes, and public facilities to check the health status of individuals before letting them enter.
Worryingly, an analysis by the New York Times has uncovered that as soon as users sign up to the system through the Alipay wallet app and software, access is granted to personal data; a piece of the program labeled “ReportInfoAndLocationToPolice” will immediately send the individual’s location, city name and an identifying code number to a server of the authorities in China. Chinese cities are currently awash with privately funded and government-run social credit systems that link up to government rankings, which Beijing states are used to ‘build trust’ among its populace for things such as financial credit.
If a Chinese citizen is deemed to have violated an aspect of socially acceptable behaviour, such as failing to pay a court fine, he/she will be added to a “List of Untrustworthy Persons.” In true dystopian fashion, when someone is called from these blacklists, there will be a siren with an accompanying message that says “Warning, this person is on the blacklist. Be careful and urge them to repay their debts.”
Bearing in mind the broader culture of mass-surveillance within China, we can determine with a reasonable degree of certainty that the purpose of the new health code is two-fold: to monitor public health, and to further entrench political control. Once the virus has been controlled, whenever that may be, it is unclear whether the Chinese government will be willing to reign in its new powers, enabling President Xi to enact even tighter measures of control on an already fettered populace. To quote the late President John F. Kenny, the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In the event of the coronavirus outbreak, the CCP has found the perfect amalgamation of both.
A healthy dose of scepticism does not go amiss as soon as sweeping measures such as the Alipay Health Code are introduced by the CCP. The party is infamously responsible for gross violations of human rights, as evidenced by the release of the China Cables which detailed the mass-internment of China’s minority Uighur population. While the Chinese government aims to portray its use of credit systems as regulatory tools to reign in corruption and halts scamming for the benefit of its people, it is imperative to expose the authority’s true nature: tools of control in the hands of an increasingly repressive state. Behaviours of an anxious public become socially engineered, exploiting people’s fears that if they step out of line, their lives will be detrimentally impacted under a scheme of unilateral conformity that promotes punishment and reward.
From the perspective of the CCP, it makes sense that the CCP would seek to curb the spread of a virus which has the potential to wreak havoc on both domestic and international markets. But once these surveillance systems are initiated and put in place, historical trends tell us that they are unlikely to be dismantled even after the threat has receded. Tragically, it will appear logical for those in power in China to retain and strengthen these omnipresent tools of supervision, integrating even greater levels of surveillance into an already oppressive environment.
Benjamin Moore is a master's graduate of International Relations from Dublin City University. Ben is currently working in the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland.
