Authorities in a single district of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing have installed 27,900 surveillance cameras and 245 sensors as part of a comprehensive “grid” surveillance plan to keep tabs on residents, officials from the district said Monday.
The move offers a rare glimpse into the running of China’s “grid” system -- the close-up monitoring of every aspect of its citizens' lives to mediate disputes, influence public opinion and minimize protests and dissent.
“We in Beibei district have fully pressed the fast-forward button to promote the construction of ... a digital Chongqing [and] deepened networked governance ... to build a smart grassroots governance system,” Lin Xuyang, delegate to the National People’s Congress and secretary of Chongqing’s Beibei District Committee, told delegates in Beijing on March 10.
The annual gathering of delegates from across the country ends Tuesday.
“There is certainly no single way to govern, but precision is definitely one of them,” Lin said, likening the local grid monitoring and surveillance systems to “fine needlework.”
“The key to governance lies in people,” he said, adding that interconnected grids have now been extended from district to residential compound level, employing a “grid leader,” full- and part-time grid members to coordinate “more than 10,000 party member volunteers” and other volunteers.
Monitors report on residents' activities
In July 2021, China empowered local officials at township, village and neighborhood level to enforce the law, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.
According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square. Each grid has a monitor who reports back on residents' affairs to local committees.
China’s “red armband” brigade of state-sanctioned busybodies have been dubbed the biggest intelligence network on the planet by social media users, and have supplied information that has also led police to crack major organized crime, according to state media.
Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, while its grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying and thinking.
These local forms of surveillance and social control are known in Chinese political jargon as the “Fengqiao Experience.”
They have also been used to target potential trouble before it emerges, with officials told to use big data to pinpoint people with marital difficulties or other grievances in the wake of the Zhuhai car killings.
RELATED STORIES
Hong Kong officials learn neighborhood surveillance from China
China recruits thousands to monitor its citizens' words and deeds
China moves ahead with ‘mass policing’ plan for local communities
A former employee of a residential compound in Chongqing who gave only the surname Yang for fear of reprisals said the cameras are mostly used to monitor the activities of local residents.
“This kind of surveillance has existed for a long time -- its official name is SkyNet,” Yang said. “In rural areas, it’s known as Project Xueliang.”
“Its purpose is to monitor what’s going on in every corner of a district,” Yang said. “People’s every move takes place under their watchful gaze.”
Aim of reducing costs
A resident of the central province of Henan who gave only the nickname Lao Wan said local governments are struggling to afford the staffing costs of the “grid” surveillance system, so are installing automated, digital equipment to monitor people instead.
“There are two main reasons for [these cameras],” Lao Wan said. “One is they can’t afford to pay their grid workers, and on the other, they want to reduce administrative costs.”
“That’s why they have mobilized civilians and volunteers to do this work, such as older men and women who have nothing else to do,” he said. “They seem to be just being friendly towards their neighbors, but in fact, they’re monitoring your every word and deed.”
The revelations about Beibei district come after the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, reported that authorities in the southeastern port city of Xiamen have set up “neighborhood supervision” stations in 11 streets and 144 residential communities in Tong’an district, in a bid to improve “grassroots governance.”
Legal affairs commentator Lu Chenyuan said local governments are struggling to pay wages, so are coordinating older people as volunteers to implement the government’s “stability maintenance” system.
“It’s a way to reduce administrative expenditures and maintain stability amid a sharp fall in tax revenues,” Lu said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.