Op-ed by Tao Zhang, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University.
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China’s embrace of digital technologies has always presented it with a dilemma: how to exercise control over this inherently expansive and unruly – yet economically indispensable – communications sphere. As the online world became the most important platform for change in China, giving rise to pro-democracy initiatives, environmental NGOs, human rights defenders and grassroots opposition, the state’s response has essentially remained the same.
Predisposed to top-down control throughout Communist Party history in order to maintain its grip on power, the Chinese state has never been capable of imagining political solutions. Rather, it has consistently fallen back on deploying technology in the suppression of opposing voices.
Hence the Great Firewall of China (also known as the Golden Shield), launched in the late 1990s, which combined censorship with multi-layered online monitoring. This was followed by Skynet, a mass video surveillance system introduced in 2005.
These technologies – later upgraded with big data, AI, facial recognition and cloud computing – were presented as tools against crime and foreign threats. But they have also been widely criticised, both inside and outside China, for silencing dissent and restricting press freedom.
By 2024, China had installed more than 600 million cameras – roughly one for every two adults – making it the largest video surveillance system in the world.
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It is the denial of freedom itself as a legitimate value by the state. Protesting Chinese citizens are not seeking adjustments to policy, but rather the recognition of their right to question, debate and express dissent.
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