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31. Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance

Author:
Danielle Cave, Fergus Ryan, and Vicky Xiuzhong Xu
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre has updated the public database that maps the global expansion of key Chinese technology companies. This update adds a further 11 companies and organisations: iFlytek, Megvii, ByteDance (which owns TikTok), SenseTime, YITU, CloudWalk, DJI, Meiya Pico, Dahua, Uniview and BeiDou. Our public database now maps 23 companies and organisations and is visualised through our interactive website, Mapping China’s Technology Giants. The website seeks to give policymakers, academics, journalists, government officials and other interested readers a more holistic picture of the increasingly global reach of China’s tech giants. The response to phase 1 of this project—it quickly became one of ASPI’s most read products—suggests that the current lack of transparency about some of these companies’ operations and governance arrangements has created a gap this database is helping to fill. This update adds companies working mainly in the artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance tech sectors. SenseTime, for example, is one of the world’s most valuable AI start-ups. iFlytek is a partially state-owned speech recognition company. Meiya Pico is a digital forensics and security company that created media headlines in 2019 because of its monitoring mobile app MFSocket.1 In addition, we’ve added DJI, which specialises in drone technologies, and BeiDou, which isn’t a company but the Chinese Government’s satellite navigation system. We also added ByteDance—an internet technology company perhaps best known internationally for its video app, TikTok, which is popular with teenagers around the world. TikTok is also attracting public and media scrutiny in the US over national security implications, the use of US citizens’ data and allegations of censorship, including shadow banning (the down-ranking of particular topics via the app’s algorithm so users don’t see certain topics in their feed). Company overviews now include a summary of their activities in Xinjiang.2 For some companies, including ByteDance and Huawei, we are including evidence of their work in Xinjiang that has not being reported publicly before. For most of these companies, the surveillance technologies and techniques being rolled out abroad—often funded by loans from the Export–Import Bank of China (China Eximbank)3—have long been used on Chinese citizens, and especially on the Uyghur and other minority populations in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1.5 million people are being arbitrarily held in detention centres.4 Some of these companies have actively and repeatedly obscured their work in Xinjiang, including in hearings with foreign parliamentary committees. This project now includes evidence and analysis of those activities in order to foster greater transparency about their engagement in human rights abuses or ethically questionable activities in the same way Western firms are held to account by Western media and civil society actors, as they should be. In this report, we include a number of case studies in which we delve deeper into parts of the dataset. This includes case studies on TikTok as a vector for censorship and surveillance, BeiDou’s satellite and space race and CloudWalk’s various AI, biometric data and facial recognition partnerships with the Zimbabwean Government. We also include a case study on Meiya Pico’s work with China’s Public Security Ministry on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aid projects in Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Those projects include the construction of digital forensics labs and cyber capacity training, including for police forces across Asia. We have also investigated the role that foreign investment plays in the global expansion of some of these companies, particularly in China’s surveillance and public security sector.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cybersecurity, Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, and Emerging Technology
Political Geography:
China and Asia-Pacific

32. Security First, Technology Second: Putin Tightens his Grip on Russia’s Internet – with China’s Help

Author:
Andrei Soldatov
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Since his return to the Russian presidency in 2012, Vladimir Putin has sought to bring the Russian internet under his control. Digital businesses in Russia pay dearly for his expensive system of surveillance and censorship. This slows down the pace of innovation and puts the modernization of the economy at risk. Even then, technical control over the internet remains shaky. The Kremlin is seeking Chinese assistance to enforce restrictions and be able to cut Russia off from the global internet.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Authoritarianism, Internet, Surveillance, and Censorship
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

33. The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance

Author:
Steven Feldstein
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly proliferating around the world. Startling developments keep emerging, from the onset of deepfake videos that blur the line between truth and falsehood, to advanced algorithms that can beat the best players in the world in multiplayer poker. Businesses harness AI capabilities to improve analytic processing; city officials tap AI to monitor traffic congestion and oversee smart energy metering. Yet a growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground. In order to appropriately address the effects of this technology, it is important to first understand where these tools are being deployed and how they are being used. Unfortunately, such information is scarce. To provide greater clarity, this paper presents an AI Global Surveillance (AIGS) Index—representing one of the first research efforts of its kind. The index compiles empirical data on AI surveillance use for 176 countries around the world. It does not distinguish between legitimate and unlawful uses of AI surveillance. Rather, the purpose of the research is to show how new surveillance capabilities are transforming the ability of governments to monitor and track individuals or systems. It specifically asks: Which countries are adopting AI surveillance technology? What specific types of AI surveillance are governments deploying? Which countries and companies are supplying this technology?
Topic:
Science and Technology, Privacy, Surveillance, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Global Focus

34. China’s Social Credit System: A Chimera with Real Claws

Author:
Séverine Arséne
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
China's Social Credit System remains a poorly understood combination of rating schemes and blacklists, but the consequences for individuals and businesses are very real. Since the State Council published a “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014-2020)”, all administrations and localities in China have been busy figuring out ways to develop social credit systems relevant to their own jurisdiction, while a few corporations have also been experimenting with private social credit ratings, more akin to loyalty schemes, in conjunction with the policy. From this hotchpotch of experimentation, two distinct instruments are taking shape in the so-called public system: first, personal credit ratings managed by localities, and secondly, blacklists of individuals and companies managed by sectorial administrations (the Supreme People’s Court, the Tax Department, Department of Agriculture, etc). Arrangements across administrations and corporate partners enable the implementation of rewards and punishments attached to the blacklists, while personal ratings carry only perks.
Topic:
Governance, Business, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

35. "Key Individuals Management" and the Roots of China's Anti-Muslim Surveillance System

Author:
Emile Dirks
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The repression of Xinjiang’s Uighur population by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to horrify world opinion. Along with interning an estimated one million people in a network of re-education camps, the Chinese state has built extensive systems of daily surveillance directed at the region’s Muslims (China Brief, March 14, 2017; China Brief, November 5, 2018). Police inspections of local homes, blacklists of suspect Muslims, and biometric data collection are widespread. Previous research has illustrated how such policies have their roots in earlier (and ongoing) repression campaigns against Falun Gong and other religious groups (China Brief, February 1). However, evidence now suggests that these systems of social surveillance and repression also originated in programs directed at wider groups of Chinese citizens, identified as “key individuals” (重点人员, zhongdian renyuan). Systems of “key population management” (重点人口管理, zhongdian renkou guanli) possess many of the features associated with Xinjiang’s security state: profiling, extensive personal and biometric data collection, and location-based tracking.
Topic:
Islam, Science and Technology, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
China and Xinjiang

36. Islamic Countries Engage with China Against the Background of Repression in Xinjiang

Author:
Roie Yellinek
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
State-directed repression and harassment directed against Muslims in China has drawn broad international condemnation throughout the Western world. However, what has been the reaction from the Islamic world itself? Although reactions among major states have varied (as discussed below), the reaction throughout the Islamic world has largely been one of deafening silence—and when voices are raised, they have been faint.
Topic:
International Relations, Islam, Prisons/Penal Systems, State Violence, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
China, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Xinjiang

37. Monitoring Uranium Mining and Milling in China and North Korea through Remote Sensing Imagery

Author:
Melissa Hanham
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:
Although uranium mining and milling constitute the first step in any nuclear-weapons program, nuclear nonproliferation analysts have devoted surprisingly little attention to monitoring these processes. Understanding and monitoring uranium mines and mills can provide deeper insight into fissile-material production. This report focuses on the insights gleaned from remotely sensed images of known Chinese uranium mines and mills to understand the current status of uranium mining and milling in North Korea.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, Surveillance, Mining, and Uranium
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and North Korea

38. Grasping Power with Both Hands: Social Credit, the Mass Line, and Party Control

Author:
Samantha Hoffman
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The CCP’s development of the ‘social credit’ system is another step in the Party’s long exploration of ways to fuse political control and economic prosperity. The expanding global reach of China’s economy means that social credit’s fusion of social and political control will also be used to bend entities outside China’s borders towards the Party’s political objectives. Dozens of international airlines, including four US airlines, recently discovered what this means in practice.
Topic:
International Relations, Economy, Ideology, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

39. “The Best Possible Sanction:” Kim Jong-un and the Quest for Credible Nuclear Deterrence

Author:
Gary J. Sampson
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
In 2017, North Korea under Kim Jong-un has made significant strides toward the capabilities needed for a credible nuclear deterrent. This article analyzes the most recent achievements of the North Korean nuclear weapons program, including its September 2017 nuclear test and its three long-range missile tests in the latter half of 2017. Observers should not discount Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. However, other capabilities such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and targeting require further development to achieve the full range of capabilities associated with a credible nuclear deterrent. Because of the high costs associated with the development of robust strategic intelligence and targeting capabilities, Pyongyang may be willing to settle for lower levels of capability in these areas, which may still be sufficient to guide nuclear attacks. As a result, policymakers must move to a bargaining strategy that acknowledges the reality of North Korea’s nuclear capability, marking a significant policy shift among regional allies. Pyongyang’s long-held desire to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its regional allies may be coming to fruition. Kim Jong-un has shrewdly played his hand from a position of weakness and succeeded where many others failed—a high-risk path upon which he still walks. China’s minimum credible nuclear deterrent may be a model for Kim Jong-un’s development of North Korean nuclear capability.
Topic:
Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, Surveillance, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

40. China’s Air Defense Identification System: The Role of PLA Air Surveillance

Author:
Mark Stokes
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Project 2049 Institute
Abstract:
In the wake of the 18th Central Committee’s Third Plenum in November 2013, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced the establishment of its first air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Assessments of the ADIZ to date have focused in large part on implications for territorial and maritime disputes in region. However, other potential drivers may offer additional context for the decision. Among these include coercion of Taiwan, unprecedented changes in China’s national airspace management system, and technical advances that have enhanced interoperability between the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and Navy (PLAN).
Topic:
Defense Policy, Territorial Disputes, Surveillance, and Air Force
Political Geography:
China and Asia