BIG BROTHER COMES TO CHINA: The Chinese government is using high-tech surveillance to track the nation's huge population--and keep people in line.

• Author: Mozur, Paul
• Position: Cover story

In the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, a police officer wearing facial recognition glasses spotted a heroin smuggler at a train station.

In the city of Qingdao, cameras powered by artificial intelligence helped the police snatch two dozen criminal suspects at a big annual festival.

In Wuhu, a fugitive murder suspect was identified by a camera as he bought food from a street vendor.

With millions of cameras and billions of lines of computer code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future. The country is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to build a vast national surveillance system to track its 1.4 billion people.

"Right now, China is in the midst of building the most far-reaching and sophisticated surveillance state in the world, and it's all enabled by technology," says Samm Sacks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C.

For a long time, technology has been considered a powerful force for spreading democracy. The idea was that increased access to technology would bring people--especially those in repressive countries like China--more freedom by connecting them to the broader world. But in China, the reverse has happened: Technology has given the government more control.

In some cities, cameras scan train stations for China's most wanted. Billboard-size displays show the faces and names of jaywalkers and list the people who don't pay their debts. Facial recognition scanners guard the entrances to housing complexes. Already, China has an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras--four times as many as the United States (see "The U.S. & High-Tech Surveillance," p. 10).

Some parts of China are further along than others in their use of the new technologies. But the gaps may not matter: Chinese authorities are talking up their surveillance projects, so even the possibility that the government may be watching is often enough to keep citizens in line.

300 Million Cameras by 2020

Critics liken the government monitoring to the Big Brother state in George Orwell's famous dystopian novel, 1984, and it's already revolutionizing life in China. Consider what happened recently in Xiangyang, a midsize city about 700 miles west of Shanghai. The intersection south of Changhong Bridge used to be a nightmare, with cars zooming through and jaywalkers darting into the street.

Then in summer 2017, the police put up cameras linked to facial recognition technology and a big, outdoor screen. Photos of lawbreakers were displayed alongside their names and government ID numbers.

"If you are captured by the system and you don't see it, your neighbors or colleagues will, and they will gossip about it," says Guan Yue, a government spokeswoman. "That's too embarrassing for people to take."

There have even been moves to use this kind of technology to monitor students in classrooms. One high school in the city of Hangzhou, south of Shanghai, uses cameras to scan students' faces every 30 seconds. Facial recognition software and AI analyze the images to determine whether the students are paying attention--and to assess their mood.

China's surveillance systems are part of a larger trend toward more government control. The man behind that trend is Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi is China's most powerful leader in decades, and the recent elimination of term limits means he could remain president indefinitely. Since taking office in 2012, Xi has tightened his grip on China's massive military and used an anti-corruption campaign to purge Chinese officials he considers disloyal. Xi's government has also intensified online censorship that includes bans on U.S. companies like Google and Twitter and carried out a broad internet crackdown.

To consolidate control, Xi has launched a major upgrade of China's surveillance state. China...