By David Cartwright, Glasgow
‘Total Trust: Surveillance State’ is a 2023 documentary from the Storyville series. It looks at the pervasive surveillance operations put in place by the Chinese state to police its own population. The Storyville series has a reputation for really high quality in-depth investigations and this one is no exception. It analyses the state level use of data and surveillance operations and then makes it very real by looking at the impact on individual families who have fallen foul of the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘rules’.
The programme opens with a simple but chilling set of three statements:
- The Chinese government has been using smart technology for the past two decades to create an increasingly monitored and closely scrutinised society.
- A grid-based system has been rolled out nationwide to collect data and “manage” social disruptions at the grassroots level.
- Various programmes are currently being tested to determine a citizen’s trustworthiness.
The Chinese government propaganda machine
One of the strong points in the programme is how it uses official government broadcasts to show how the government propaganda machine works. The 100 year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took place in 2021 during the making of the film. Footage is shown of very formalised events like people smiling while singing ‘only the Chinese Communist Party can build a new China’. A broadcaster explains to the public that the CCP will keep people safe but ‘danger also comes from within the nation’ and the public needs to be mobilised against that danger.
Various programmes are currently being tested to determine a citizen’s trustworthiness. And the authorities are managing to involve ordinary citizens in this process. The TV programme follows a group of volunteers policing their neighbourhood. They busy themselves with litter picking but they are on the look out for other things. One asks ‘did you spot any violations’. They find a car with the window left open and call the owner to point out his misdemeanour.
Throughout the programme we see how the state involves ordinary people in the surveillance. There are 80 million members of the Communist Party and we see one mass swearing in ceremony where they declare in unison: “I will uphold the Party’s programme, observe the provisions of the Party constitution, and never betray the Party.”
The three personal cases explored in the programme
This all appears very benign but the programme uses three case studies to show how the state moves against anybody that challenges it. The first case is Zijuan Chen whose husband, Weiping Chang was arrested in 2020 for ‘inciting subversion of state power’. Weiping is a defence lawyer who fought cases for people who petitioned the authorities challenging the forced demolition of their houses by the state.
The second case is Sophia Xuequin Huang, a journalist and friend of Weiping. She publicised the #MeToo movement and was attacked for that position in China. Weiping defended her. After Weiping’s arrest she stated publicly that he had been tortured whilst under arrest. Sophie also spoke out about the extradition bill in Hong Kong in 2019.
The third case is that of Quanzhang Wang and Wenzu Li. Quanzhang is a human rights lawyer and long time target of the state. At the time of the programme he had been released from jail, but he has had his licence revoked for most cases (other than land acquisitions and demolition of urban houses). He also finds he cannot get out of his flat to attend events. A peephole camera was installed in the flat directly facing his across the landing by a team of specialist electricians. On the day he planned to attend the European Human Rights Day conference, four people turned up (in Covid masks) with fold up chairs to sit outside his flat door and prevent him leaving. They told him he couldn’t leave but would not say why. They left after the conference was over.
Quanzhang’s story relates back to the ‘709 crackdown’ in 2015. He was one of 300 lawyers taken away for interrogation in July that year. The claims against them included the charge that they had received training from overseas with a hidden agenda to undermine the government. That crackdown led to the arrest of 27 lawyers.
Government monitoring systems like the grid system and facial recognition
Quanzhang explains how the government is using big data to monitor peoples movements within a grid system where there is one grid officer for every 400 people. An official spokesperson admits that there are 4.5 million grid officers in the country. A female grid officer from Rongcheng in Shandong seems proud of her role. She explains that there are ‘specific people we keep an eye on’ and ‘we are given a watch list by a higher level of government’. She says that they record their every movement and because it is a gated community they can track everybody in and out with facial recognition.
In Shanghai we see how facial recognition cameras are used in a shopping centre for the purposes of ‘emotion analysis’. The technique is illustrated with a room full of people where their every move is interpreted.
Another aspect of the surveillance culture is the ‘sharp eyes project’. There are 170 million cameras already in place with another 400 million planned in the next 3 years. At one point we see how a neighbour of Weiping Chang’s father finds 3 CCTV cameras installed in front of his house following his expressions of support for Weiping.
The Rongcheng community system for ranking citizens’ allegiance to the party
One example of the systems used for showing allegiance to the party is the Rongcheng community system. Official video promotions of the Rongcheng programme are shown. The Rongcheng community app has a ranking system. 300 hours of community service gains you 50 points. There are 190 ways of gaining points but 1,040 ways to lose them. A petition to the government costs you 50. Spreading rumours online costs you 20 and so on. If your social credit score drops from A to B you may have to recover it by showing remorse and taking moral lessons. The end result can be severe. It can affect the school you can send your child to. It can prevent you using high speed trains.
The constant surveillance of targeted individuals is highlighted when Zijuan Chen visits the father of her husband, Weiping Chang. Almost immediately a neighbour called Jong-An walks in. She makes out she’s just asking after Zijuan but everything about the encounter makes you feel that her check in was on behalf of the authorities.
Zijuan and her son, Tutu took a taxi to see Weiping Chang facing charges in Baoji City 2,000 kilometres away. Nearly at the destination they hit a police roadblock. The guard knew exactly who she was and prevented her going any further. They kept her there until the hearing had finished and then just went away.
How the Covid pandemic was used to restrict the movement of government targets
The programme is filmed during the Covid pandemic. That gave the authorities an extra weapon to use against people they were targeting. Examples were shown like Zijuan trying to go into a health shop but having her health card turn yellow (medium risk, 7 day isolation) stopping her going in. Another example was how a number of protesters against the Henan Bank had their status turn Red (high risk, 14 day isolation).
Again, the programme skilfully interlaces propaganda from Government media outlets with realities on the ground. One TV presenter reports: “After Covid, people’s trust in the Government has increased to 98%.” This is followed by social media footage from April 2022 taken in urban areas with people locked down in tower blocks and shouting “We’re out of food”. There is also footage of people in hazmat suits, arresting people at shops and breaking into peoples’ homes. You hear the cry “The police are beating us.”
Sophia Huang reflects on her predicament and comments: “It’s true that China is getting more authoritarian, but I see rebellion among the younger generations.”
The human stories in the programme
The programme gives a clear picture of the emotional impact of the state surveillance on the three families followed, including on those with children. It concludes by reporting what happened to them all. Sophia Huang was arrested in September 2021. Zijuan Chen moved to the USA in October 2022 so that Tutu, her son could get consistent access to education, disrupted as it was in China. Her husband, Weiping Chang remained in prison. Quanzhang Wang and Wenzu Li were continuing their work as human rights lawyer but their son was having to change school almost every semester due to police harassment
A quick look at what has happened to them since shows that their torment continues. Sophia Huang was charged in June 2024 and given a 5 year jail sentence. In July, Chang Weiping was released from prison after three and a half years but he has a travel ban for the next 2 years meaning he cannot rejoin his wife and son in the USA. Quanzhang Wang and his family continue to be harassed and have had to move home many times.
What the programme tells us about the struggle for socialism in China
The programme is a documentary and as such its aim is to simply document a particular aspect of what is happening in China today. It very effectively does that and highlights the challenge facing those who fight for the democratic right to free expression. For socialists, however, we will want to ask what this means for the struggle for socialism in China. Of all the countries in the world it has the second largest economy, the highest manufacturing output (by a long way) and the largest working class.
The beneficiaries of this surveillance system are the bureaucratic elite in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and the capitalists who have asserted themselves as a class more and more in the last three decades. The working class will have to take on both of these forces in order to purge the state system of the bureaucracy and fight off the power of the capitalists in the big workplaces. The Storyville documentary shows the enormous challenges the Chinese masses will face if they dare move in the direction of workers democracy and socialism. The workers’ movement internationally needs to follow these developments carefully and support the Chinese working class movement with every means possible.
The 95 minute Storyville documentary ‘Total Trust: Surveillance State’ is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer here. The film is part of a project called ‘The Impact Campaign for Total Trust’, details of which can be found here.
