Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
One of the world's most respected investigative reporters reveals how George Orwell's chilling vision of authoritarianism in 1984 has come true in modern China's high-tech surveillance state.
They are always watching.
For nearly twenty years, politicians from President Bill Clinton to tech gurus including Google's Eric Schmidt proclaimed that the internet could not be censored by any government, including China. As recently as 2013, Tim Berners-Lee, often credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web, declared that "piece by piece, website by website, China's 'great firewall' would meet the same fate as the Berlin Wall." Yet these predictions have been proved wrong. In We Have Been Harmonized, award-winning journalist Kai Strittmatter reveals how the internet and high tech have transformed the power of Chinese authoritarians, allowing them to create the most horrifying surveillance state in history.
Advances in technology--facial recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, mobile phones, high-resolution security cameras--make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Text messages and emails are instantly stripped of "problematic" words. The year 1989--when the world witnessed the student protests and tragic massacre at Tiananmen Square--has been banished from search results. Cameras scan for "appropriate" facial expressions as they track individuals' movements. Each citizen is given a score for good behavior. Those who lose points can be banned from traveling, have their internet speed reduced, or even have their toilet paper limited.
All of this has happened with the help of Chinese tech companies, as well as the complicity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. While these companies export their technology to authoritarian states around the globe, they are also reshaping American lives via app, smart phones, and computing. Strittmatter's book is a terrifying portrait of an Orwellian nightmare unlike anything we've ever witnessed, and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere.
Synopsis
An award winning China correspondent reveals how George Orwell's chilling vision of authoritarianism in 1984 is being outdone by China's rulers.
It was not all that long ago that politicians and tech gurus were giddily proclaiming new information technologies, especially the internet, as every autocrat's worst enemy. Even in dictatorships like China, they promised to bring freedom and undermine authoritarian rule. Tim Berners-Lee, often credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web, declared that "piece by piece, website by website, China's 'great firewall' would meet the same fate as the Berlin Wall."
These digital evangelists could not have been more wrong.
In We Have Been Harmonized, journalist Kai Strittmatter reveals how the internet and high tech have allowed China to create the largest and most effective surveillance state in history. This new drive for repression is being underpinned by unprecedented advances in technology: Facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conversations and monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases including everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control, among hundreds of other inputs. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's movement. In some schools, children's facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who score poorly punishments include being banned from flying or taking a high speed train, exclusion from certain jobs, and having their children prevented from attending better schools. And there's worse: Advanced surveillance has been behind the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in Western China alone, many held in draconian "reeducation" camps.
This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complicity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad--including to the United States.
We Have Been Harmonized is a chilling portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning to about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
Synopsis
"Terrifying. ... A warning call." --The Sunday Times (UK), a "Best Book of the Year so Far"
"A remarkable book. ... The more one reads, the more pressing one conclusion becomes: almost everything we thought we knew about contemporary China is wrong." --The Observer, "Book of the Week"
Hailed as a masterwork of reporting and analysis, and based on decades of research within China, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look at how the inter-net and high tech have allowed China to create the largest and most effective surveillance state in history.
China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre-cedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conver-sations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases, along with everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's move-ment. In some schools, children's facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System, each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who rate poorly, punishments include being banned from flying or taking high-speed trains, exclusion from certain jobs, and preventing their children from attending better schools. And it gets worse: advanced surveillance has led to the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in western China alone, many held in draconian "reeducation" camps.
This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complic-ity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad--including to the United States.
We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
Synopsis
"A remarkable book. ... The more one reads, the more pressing one conclusion becomes: almost everything we thought we knew about contemporary China is wrong." --The Observer, "Book of the Week"
Hailed as a masterwork of reporting and analysis, and based on decades of research within China, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look at how the inter-net and high tech have allowed China to create the largest and most effective surveillance state in history.
China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre-cedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conver-sations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases, along with everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's move-ment. In some schools, children's facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System, each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who rate poorly, punishments include being banned from flying or taking high-speed trains, exclusion from certain jobs, and preventing their children from attending better schools. And it gets worse: advanced surveillance has led to the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in western China alone, many held in draconian "reeducation" camps.
This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complic-ity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad--including to the United States.
We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
"Terrifying. ... A warning call. --The Sunday Times (UK), a "Best Book of the Year so Far"
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Rana Mitter, Sunday Times (UK), a "Best Book of the Year so Far"Synopsis
NAMED A NOTABLE WORK OF NONFICTION OF 2020 BY THE WASHINGTON POST
"A remarkable book. ... The more one reads, the more pressing one conclusion becomes: almost everything we thought we knew about contemporary China is wrong." --The Observer, "Book of the Week"
Hailed as a masterwork of reporting and analysis, and based on decades of research within China, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look at how the inter-net and high tech have allowed China to create the largest and most effective surveillance state in history.
China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre-cedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conver-sations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases, along with everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's move-ment. In some schools, children's facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System, each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who rate poorly, punishments include being banned from flying or taking high-speed trains, exclusion from certain jobs, and preventing their children from attending better schools. And it gets worse: advanced surveillance has led to the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in western China alone, many held in draconian "reeducation" camps.
This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complic-ity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad--including to the United States.
We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
"Terrifying. ... A warning call. --The Sunday Times (UK), a "Best Book of the Year so Far"
Synopsis
Named a Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2020 by the Washington Post
As heard on NPR's Fresh Air, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look, based on decades of research, at how the China created the most terrifying surveillance state in history.
China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre-cedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conver-sations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases, along with everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's move-ment. In some schools, children's facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System, each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who rate poorly, punishments include being banned from flying or taking high-speed trains, exclusion from certain jobs, and preventing their children from attending better schools. And it gets worse: advanced surveillance has led to the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in western China alone, many held in draconian "reeducation" camps.
This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complic-ity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China's huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad--including to the United States.
We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
"Terrifying. ... A warning call. --The Sunday Times (UK), a "Best Book of the Year so Far"