
Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life - liscovich
https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355
======
jimmies
I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is
that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing.

I was in Singapore, a rich, orderly state for an internship a couple of years
ago. There were cameras everywhere: Cameras on the sidewalks, cameras on the
staircases, cameras in residential apartments, cameras in the subway, cameras
at the workplace. There were very few places I feel not watched. I have to
hunt for them. This is very contrasted with the US, where mostly I feel that I
have my privacy and trusted to do the right thing. That's a very powerful
feeling.

But that is going away with smartphone cameras and surveillance cameras. They
are getting cheaper, and no one is here to be fighting against them. Maybe
that's a one-way road, there is not much we can do about it. Maybe that's for
the better, but somehow I feel life is much more boring that way.

~~~
crdb
Funny how these things work... I've lived in Singapore for close to 7 years,
have permanent residence, and it is when I travel to the US that I feel
slightly uncomfortable.

It starts with the immigration agent who sometimes feels the need to ask me
questions for 20 minutes as if I were a criminal, there's the part where they
get to look through all your social media accounts and hold you indefinitely,
and then there's the thought of a traffic stop by a bored cop
"degenerating"... it's tough to travel to countries like these when you're
used to a polite government whose agents treat you, the foreigner, with
consideration and like a customer.

For example, when I went to my PR interview, my medical checks had expired
(and it was transparent I had hoped to get away with it); the lady very
helpfully opened up a slot for me a few hours later and recommended me a range
of clinics nearby to do the missing medical checks. A breath of fresh air
after dealing with the French and other "first world" governments...

No CCTV in my street except for the hedge that borders the Istana 100m away.
We do get the odd police car patrolling the perimeter, but since the President
lives there and the Prime Minister works there, I can understand. As for the
US, I've never been in a building with more than a couple storeys that did not
have CCTV, so I'm curious about your frame of reference there (most of
Singapore consists of 20+ storey buildings). I've never been in a US mall or
office building without CCTV. The only reason my residential building in NYC
did not have CCTV was because it was pre-war; it also didn't have working
heating, and I'd rather have had both.

I do agree that Singapore is probably not the place to move if you enjoy a
suburban lifestyle in a big house with a garden.

edit - here's something you can't do in the US: my friend and I bought a
couple craft beers from a Japanese supermarket, then sat down on public
benches in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum (opposite CBD and the
Fullerton Hotel), cracked them open and sipped them slowly in front of the
view.

~~~
jimmies
All you said is true.

Forget to mention, aside from that, I love Singapore in general and I have no
illusion that the US is getting more hostile by the day. I have been in the US
as a foreigner for 10 years. Last time I came back, I was hassled and treated
like a piece of shit by a customs official, too (and I love how they ask for
social accounts now, I hope they don't ask for HN?). Recently I was extremely
upset having so much difficulties getting my driver's license renewed. I think
the new Trump thing made it so much worse too, but I'd rather not dig into the
Trump thing. In Singapore? Government officials did treat me like a human, I
absolutely loved that.

However, once you're in in the US, you have NYC, Chicago, SF and you also have
Smallville or Lancesterville in the middle of nowhere. In those supposedly
backward, homophobic X-villes, you can see part of why some people love the US
so much. It's still the life we love in the 80s-90s movies like Back in the
future or Groundhog day. They have no cameras, people greet you on the street,
and you can go for miles and miles by car, bike, or on foot and you wouldn't
see any other person.

Yeah, I get it, it's not legal drinking a beer in the public. I used to live
in a rented house downtown with other graduate students in a relatively big
town that houses the state's biggest college. During the summertime weekends,
we often just drank and smoked and played the guitar (and flute, and banged on
broken guitar) all night long on the front porch and watched the cops
patrolled by. The other day in X-ville, we smoked our asses out one night. The
next morning, I jumped on my friend's 70s truck and saw a 6-pack of beers,
some new, some empty. I asked whether we should move it back, and I quote his
answer, "Have some man, it's X-ville, no one actually gives a fuck." We
blasted an FM channel full of country songs, cranked the window down, and I
rode shotgun in a glorious sunrise.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
Those villes are carcasses of society, they are small because nobody wants to
live there

I’m glad you enjoy the choice

~~~
amigoingtodie
You don't sound glad about anything.

------
jruthers
I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of article.

Although the content of the article scares me personally, it would be
interesting to have more of a discourse about more plausible reasons why this
kind of surveillance is "good" from a genuine different perspective. One
mistake the Chinese govt makes is never explaining themselves in a plausible
way so it always comes across as Orwellian. Further, because no Chinese
national is supposed to acknowledge the govt power, most nationals can't
comment on it without getting themselves or their family in serious trouble.

I have a (non-Chinese-from-China) friend who works most of the year in China
and he explained the surveillance state as "well, if you've got a nation of
more than a billion people and a huge range of wealth levels and, culturally,
you value stability of the nation more than individual liberty, yeah, you're
going to go to extremes on security and surveillance. It's all about ensuring
stability and adherence to 'normal' behavior. Yeah it's creepy but it's _safe_
if you stay in line."

I'm not saying I agree with the exchange of individual liberty vs surveillance
but it would be refreshing to read more plausible takes on the "China has it
right" viewpoint.

~~~
gumby
> I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of
> article.

Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest of
China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who are
Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists. The
Chinese language is the official one but is not spoken at home by most people
there. The central government promotes Han migration/colonization of Xinjiang
as they do with Tibet.

So I suspect you'd find most Chinese people outside Xinjiang _very_ supportive
of this: the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of
China with a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example, how
the government of Spain used to describe ETA, or, without the violence, the
Catalonian independence movement).

In addition, every time a western politician claims that "all muslims are evil
terrorists" it gets printed in China as support for the narrative that these
"security" measures are justified (Uyghur separatists have bombed Beijing and
other han cities).

I expect this to be routine in OECD countries within the next 20 years. Hell,
I remember dystopian movies always had bizarre, pointless "security"
announcements as a way of showing how creepy the future had become and how the
future didn't believe in people having time to think...and now that happens in
every airport and train station in the world! ===

My second paragraph is simply the situation on the ground. The territory
around Xinjiang has been under Chinese control for over 250 years; in the
preceding millennia it sometimes has; at other times, as part of various
Khanates it's been part of empires that controlled China (just as Tibet has at
various times been independent; been under the control of China; and been in
control of the emperor of China) So depending on what time point you pick you
can justify an argument that Beijing's control of the area is "legitimate" or
"illegitimate". I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic,
not muslim, buddhist, whatever).

~~~
HowardMei
|> I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic, not muslim,
buddhist, whatever).<|

But your information source is limited to English world, which favors
separatists over the other side.

|> Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest
of China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who
are Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists.<|

Hah? Xinjiang was founded after the extinction of Dzungar people who were
mongolians. Most han and manchu residents in Xinjiang are desendants of
military migrants of Qing dynasty. The Nothern half of Xinjiang had never been
populated by Uyghurs and although the Uyghur population has been expanding
much more rapidly than other ethinics in Xinjiang, they are NOT the owner of
the entire Xinjiang. Please stop repeating these disgusting FAKE claims.

|> the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of China with
a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example ...<|

They're terrorists. You're a terrorist defender. Pure and simple. Attacking
innocent people to attain certain political influnce is the essense of
terrorism. I've been fed up by your kind of takiyah and abuse of political
correctness.

|> all muslims are evil terrorists <|

It's not true given the Hui muslim in China get many many privileges over Han
and other ethnic minorities. One of the most important PRC founding fathers,
Zhou Enlai, is a desendant of muslim as his niece recently disclosed. The PRC
ethnic and religion policy framework was set up by Zhou Enlai. The Xinjiang
problem was sparked by Zhou's wife Deng Yinchao in 1980s. The CCP censoring
departments are established and controlled by Hui muslim CCP leaders according
to the Criminal Law Act 250/251 (which was set up by a Hui imam in 1997).

In fact, many atheist and agnostic people are fearing the rapid islamization
of China society, especially the legal/eductional sectors and the hatred the
Hui CCP leaders showing towards Han and other secular ethinic groups.

In conclution, you know NOTHING about the REAL China. Han people don't have
the proprotional ruling power and influence over the CCP elites with respect
to the population scale. Keeping China as an integral nation is the
responsibility of the PRC government, not the duty of common Han people. It's
Hui wumaos who have been yelling to nuke Taiwan.

REPEAT AGAIN: Zhou Enlai was a Hui deceived as Han and set up a lot of laws
against so called "Han chauvinism". This month alone there are two legal cases
sentenced 2 Han people into jail for humiliating respectful historical ethnic
figures.

Downvote me as you wish. Given the twisted information the English media keep
spreading, I won't be surprised there'll be a civilization collision between
West and East, beneficial to all muslims, if one day the Han people fight back
the islamization led by those Hui CCP elites.

Great civilizations never fail to rising challengers but always fail to their
own arrogance and ignorance.

~~~
gumby
> But your information source is limited to English world

Thanks for letting me know I only speak English; I’ll be sure to tell my non-
English-speaking relatives that I’ve been speaking to them in English all
these years rather than their various languages.

------
kccqzy
I have a friend who’s born in Xinjiang and she told me this kind of control
goes far beyond just surveillance, physical control, ID checks and whatnot. In
a very Orwellian way, it also extends to control of the mind. Schools,
government agencies, and local companies have to have their students and
employees routinely recite propaganda about “ethnic unity” and relevant
official policies and conduct routine tests to make sure these things are
memorized.

Big Brother isn’t just watching you, it’s also trying to sneak its way into
your mind.

~~~
zipwitch
America is much better about this sort of thing. Aside from a few obvious
holdover examples like the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem, the
US doesn't bother with such ham-handed, last century techniques.

It's much easier to just coerce the media and get the public to consume the
propaganda as entertainment.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/entertainment/la-
ca-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/entertainment/la-ca-military-
movies-20110821)

[https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-
documents-...](https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-
expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-
shows-36433107c307)

~~~
xster
And the native culture is thriving. All tribal languages are taught at school.
No child is being sent to resident schools and getting sexually abused. The
native population is has lower rates of suicide, substance abuse, obesity,
poverty etc.

Sorry, I had to.

------
jackyinger
The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities
here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive.

It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag
orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech
companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

~~~
Animats
In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement
a Big Brother system competently. Every little police department has their own
system, and private sector systems aren't integrated with government systems.
Look at the mess in DC - their camera system was taken over by a botnet. Not
even to use the camera data, just to mooch network resources.

There's an business opportunity here. There's an outsourced surveillance
industry, but it's small.[1] One of the big players has only 9,000 cameras.
Nobody has scaled this yet.

Amazon might. They've already convinced millions of people to put a microphone
in every room, reporting to Amazon HQ. Now they're getting into cameras and
door locks.

Google, probably not. Their Nest unit makes stuff that looks good, but doesn't
work well.

[1] [http://stealthmonitoring.com/](http://stealthmonitoring.com/)

~~~
kbart
_" In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to
implement a Big Brother system competently."_

NSA begs your pardon..

~~~
soundwave106
As bad the NSA's current data collection activities are, I don't think it
compares to China's Big Brother.

I seriously doubt in China, for instance, that the EFF that highlighted much
of the NSA's surveillance activities would even be allowed to exist.

------
dghughes
I couldn't read the linked story but I did see a video of this on a different
news site.

What I found chilling was the level of technology. Each camera has AI built
into it, your gait is tracked, your gender is tracked, your relationships are
tracked going back one week.

The person being interviewed I don't know if he was proud of it or trying to
calm fears by what he said. The point of the system he said is to gather as
much data as possible on everyone so they can predict crime, very Minority
Report-like stuff. So to calm everyone his point was we will know everything
you do all the time in such detail we'll know your daily patterns. Lord help
you if you are a spontaneous mood one day.

------
l33tbro
The idea of Bubba the local beat cop packet-sniffing my smartphone and
arbitrarily detaining me "because encryption" is a mortifying thought.
Hopefully it remains nothing more than a far-fetched concern here in the West,
but I wouldn't count on it.

------
autokill
[http://archive.is/pMV4U](http://archive.is/pMV4U)

------
artificial
Fascinating, the subject orientation is what you see elsewhere with machine
vision - it was a big part of F8 this last year. I don't really see a way out
of surveillance besides legislation since processing power and storage
increasingly becomes cheaper.

------
nicoolai
I went to Urumqi about 10 years ago. It was nothing like this. It was actually
an amazing place, full of diverse culture and awesome people.

In 2009, when these riots happened, I remember we lost complete contact with
the factory there. The Chinese government simple cut all communication in and
out of the region, till they had the situation under control.

------
songco
I was born in Xinjiang and lived there for more than 20 years. My parents
still live there.

It's a complex thing and in my hometown, no one complain the surveillance
generally.

------
softwarelimits
The video is available here:
[https://youtu.be/OQ5LnY21Hgc](https://youtu.be/OQ5LnY21Hgc)

------
sigsergv
link without paywall [https://t.co/EOOtSYkBRf](https://t.co/EOOtSYkBRf)

------
justicezyx
Did you know how many people are killed each year in Xinjiang? Because of what
western media called "understandable opposition from oppressed descendants of
the CCP", where the killed are all just innocent people?

OK tell me, what the hell the local government should do to stop the terrorism
attack?!

~~~
neaden
Allow more autonomy in traditionally autonomous regions. Allow the free
practice of religion including fasting during ramadan:
[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/china-bans-ramadan-
fas...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/china-bans-ramadan-fasting-
muslim-region-150618070016245.html) Take more input from citizens who live
there and allow them to have a stake in the governing proccess that includes
future changes.

------
pajop
if you're behind a paywall: [http://archive.is/pMV4U](http://archive.is/pMV4U)

------
liscovich
Original WSJ article: "Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State
Overwhelms Daily Life"

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-
chi...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-
surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355)

If you don't have WSJ subscription, paste the title into FB's search bar, and
open the link via search results to bypass the paywall.

~~~
mnw21cam
Assuming "FB" means Facebook, what if one doesn't have a Facebook account?

~~~
Deathmax
Or manually use FB's redirect:

[https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/...](https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-
days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-
life-1513700355)

~~~
mnw21cam
Nope - paywall still present.

~~~
karpodiem
Worked for me, I use Facebook though (may not work if you do not have a
Facebook account?)

~~~
icebraining
Worked for me too, and I don't have an FB account.

mnw21cam, maybe you're blocking the Referer?

------
thinkhard
I'd rather be watched by surveillance camera than killed by extremists.

How about you?

It is inevitable; before 911 there was almost no security check in airports.
Boarding was not too much difference than shopping in Walmart.

This is one kind of insurance: most time accident is not happening, but when
it happens it can be deadly.

Life consists of compromises. Some are unavoidable.

~~~
jeromegv
How many people killed by extremists in the US last year? Are you suggesting
that US should increase their security to the same level as China (and
implement a police state) to avoid more extremists death?

~~~
thinkhard
Have you ever been to China?

You can walk 24/7 in any city in China without worrying your safety.

Tell me you dare to walk midnight in downtown New York or LA or Chicago.

~~~
ChampTruffles
You can talk shit about your government, legitimately criticize them, read
papers discussing news from different sides even they all biased but they
still offer angles, express your opinion freely and perform your citizen
duties in NY LA or Chicago. Tell me about all these in China.

