US Tech Companies Enabled Mass Surveillance, Detention in China

An Associated Press investigation reveals that American technology companies played a significant role in designing and building China's extensive digital surveillance system, which has been used to monitor, detain, and suppress dissent among tens of thousands of citizens, including the Yang family in Jiangsu province. Despite warnings from the U.S. Congress and media about human rights abuses, these companies sold billions of dollars in technology to Chinese police and government entities, enabling surveillance that tracks individuals' movements, communications, and activities. The surveillance apparatus restricts freedom of movement, with people like Yang Guoliang monitored constantly and his family members detained while seeking justice against local officials over land disputes. The technology has also been instrumental in the brutal mass detention campaign targeting Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where surveillance flagged and graded nearly the entire native population to forcibly assimilate them. While American firms were the largest suppliers, companies from Germany, Japan, and South Korea also contributed to the surveillance infrastructure. The investigation draws on leaked documents, corporate records, and numerous interviews, highlighting the complicity of foreign tech companies in enabling one of the world's largest and most oppressive digital surveillance states.