Charles Parton

The fourth weapon

Any tool that helps to maintain social stability is welcomed by the Communist party

Chairman Mao talked of ‘three magic weapons’ for seizing power: the united front, the armed struggle and construction of the Communist party itself. Now the priority for China’s government is to remain in power. To ensure that, President Xi Jinping’s party is developing a fourth ‘magic weapon’.

The social credit system is a part of this, but the ‘weapon’ also extends far beyond it. By combining big data, artificial intelligence, recognition technology and other police techniques, China’s government intends to create a comprehensive method of political and social control.

It may not live up to everything that is promised: after all, government-implemented computer systems rarely work as well as intended. But it will affect — is already affecting — Chinese society and human rights more profoundly than any other reform or development instituted by the party.

The Chinese government has always been interested in keeping files on citizens. In the past, each citizen had a dang’an, or file, that covered their life. Nothing could be done without the dang’an. Everything was entered in it: marriage, social position, job. But this was, by necessity, pretty rudimentary. The magic weapon now being created can update that surveillance for an infinitely more complex age by tying all manner of information to a person’s personal ID number.

The weapon is to have several components. There is recognition technology, with databases covering the face, voice, fingerprints and DNA of every Chinese citizen. Then positional monitoring, including mobile devices, which even now can report on the location of 1.4 billion citizens (the trick will be to use AI to make that information recoverable in real time), backed up by other public systems, such as linking up more than 170 million cameras (said to rise to 400 million by 2020).

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Written by
Charles Parton
Charles Parton is a former UK diplomat who spent 22 years working in China. He is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the Council on Geostrategy.

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