[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TECHNO-AUTHORITARIANISM: PLATFORM FOR
REPRESSION IN CHINA AND ABROAD
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 17, 2021
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Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-147 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate House
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Chair JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts,
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California Co-chair
MARCO RUBIO, Florida CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma THOMAS SUOZZI, New York
TOM COTTON, Arkansas TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey
STEVE DAINES, Montana BRIAN MAST, Florida
ANGUS KING, Maine VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
MICHELLE STEEL, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Not yet appointed
Matt Squeri, Staff Director
Todd Stein, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from
Oregon; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China..... 1
Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern, a U.S. Representative from
Massachusetts; Co-chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China.......................................................... 2
Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from New
Jersey......................................................... 3
Cain, Geoffrey, author of ``The Perfect Police State: An
Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance
Dystopia of the Future''....................................... 5
Hoffman, Samantha, Senior Analyst, Australian Strategic Policy
Institute...................................................... 7
Wang, Yaqiu, Senior Researcher on China, Human Rights Watch...... 9
Hillman, Jonathan, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and
International Studies.......................................... 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Geoffrey Cain.................................................... 36
Samantha Hoffman................................................. 39
Yaqiu Wang....................................................... 44
Jonathan Hillman................................................. 46
Merkley, Hon. Jeff............................................... 53
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 54
Submissions for the Record
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 55
Witness Biographies.............................................. 57
(iii)
TECHNO-AUTHORITARIANISM: PLATFORM FOR REPRESSION IN CHINA AND ABROAD
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2021
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m.
in Room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Jeff
Merkley, Chair, presiding.
Also present: Representative James P. McGovern, Co-chair,
Senators Lankford, King, and Ossoff, and Representatives Smith,
Steel, Suozzi, and Wexton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
OREGON; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chair Merkley. Good morning. Today's hearing of the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China entitled ``Techno-
Authoritarianism: Platform for Repression in China and
Abroad,'' will come to order. This hearing will explore China's
role in embracing technology-enhanced authoritarianism and
promoting its spread around the world.
In China and around the globe, we are seeing that the same
technology that drives the global economy, facilitates
communication, enables financial flows, and provides the
conveniences of modern life can also be used for repression.
Without proper guardrails to protect privacy and basic human
rights, technology can control populations, trample freedom of
expression, and undermine institutions of democratic
governance. For the Chinese government and Chinese Communist
Party, it starts at home.
Over many years, the Commission has documented the
development of what has become the most pervasive surveillance
state the world has ever seen. Authorities embrace technologies
such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud
computing--the building blocks of the modern economy--to impose
political and social control of targeted populations. These
technologies offer the government an unprecedented degree of
control, enabled by the collection of massive amounts of data
from cellphones, from personal computers, DNA, security
cameras, and more.
Nowhere do we see this more tragically than in the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region. Today we will hear testimony
outlining the extent of the surveillance in Xinjiang, as well
as the heart-wrenching toll on individuals and their
communities. We will also hear from expert witnesses who will
shed light on the use of technology in mainland China and
abroad, for legitimate purposes of government efficiency and
digital connectivity but also to spread the web of repressive
control to cities across China, regions across China, the
developing world, and even the Chinese diaspora community in
the United States.
This adds up to a complex picture. The technologies we will
hear about have dual-use potential, to be used for good or for
ill. Many countries to which China exports surveillance systems
and elements of the so-called safe cities model embrace these
technologies out of a desire to combat crime or reduce traffic
or provide municipal services. Yet these technologies, this
high-tech authoritarianism, can be used to strip rights and
dignity from millions of people across the planet.
Acting to defend freedom and to defend democracy will
require the establishment of norms for the proper use and
boundaries of this technology, but we can't stop there. We have
to work with defenders of freedom across the globe to develop
attractive and affordable alternatives. This won't be easy.
That's why Co-chairman McGovern and I have convened this
hearing. We need to hear from experts on how Congress, the
United States Government, and the international community can
address these difficult challenges.
Just as the United States confronts limitations in its
ability to shape the behavior of the Chinese government, so too
will we face limitations in shaping the rest of the world,
especially when it comes to technology that empowers everyday
life. That's why we need smart action in concert with a
coalition of partners. I look forward to the testimony today to
help us work to identify the approaches that can harness
technology in a way that respects, rather than endangers,
fundamental human rights.
I'd now like to recognize my co-chairman Congressman
McGovern for his opening remarks, and that will be followed by
Congressman Smith, who is joining us electronically.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MASSACHUSETTS; CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON
CHINA
Co-chair McGovern. Well, thank you, Chairman Merkley. Thank
you for convening this hearing on the Chinese government's use
of technology and digital platforms to expand and export its
repressive policies. You know, where there was once optimism
that the internet and new technologies would create a more
open, democratized global commons, there is now a cloud of
darkness. Anti-democratic and authoritarian governments have
learned to harness such technology as a means to assert social
control. This is no longer just about human rights abuses
suffered by people over there. It is about the risks we now
face from the phones in our pockets.
Take TikTok. It is immensely popular in the United States
and can be a lot of fun, or so my kids tell me. It was
developed by a Chinese company, and there is nothing inherently
wrong with that. But we hear reports that videos on topics
sensitive to its government are blocked or disappear. Americans
deserve to know whether China's censorship regime is intruding
on their daily lives. This concern is why the Commission, under
my chairmanship in the last Congress, expanded its reporting to
include human rights violations in the United States and
globally.
Our soon-to-be-released annual report will document how the
Chinese government silences criticism, chills the expression of
political views, and undermines international norms. The
Commission's next hearing will look at the economic coercion
aspect of this trend. We cannot forget that the Chinese
government's techno-authoritarianism is felt most gravely by
the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. The surveillance regime
that they have set up in Xinjiang is the most advanced and
enveloping in the world. Is this the model for the rest of
China and the world?
This is the key question that we hope today's witnesses
will address: How can the United States ensure that its exports
do not abet the spread of the surveillance state? Can we
harness international partners? And how do individuals make
sound consumer choices? We are addressing an immensely
complicated and technical set of issues, and I'm pleased that
our witnesses bring a breadth of expertise to these evolving
challenges. I hope you will continue to share your research
with us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to hearing
the testimony of our witnesses.
Chair Merkley. Congressman Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH,
A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY
Representative Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you for convening this very, very important hearing.
As we all know, the Silk Road was a network of trade routes
connecting the East and West from roughly two centuries before
Christ to the 18th century--a transformational route in the
development of the civilizations not only of China, but also
the rest of the world. Likewise, the Great Wall of China was
built not only for defense of China's borders, but for the
regulation as well as the encouragement of trade. In short,
these twin legacies of Chinese civilization have contributed
much to the greater development of the world through open and
transparent exchanges of goods and ideas.
Unfortunately, China under Xi Jinping and the Chinese
Communist Party has not continued this proud tradition. Instead
of the Great Wall that once protected its citizens while
ensuring robust exchanges with the world, the Great Firewall
now prevents Chinese citizens from global engagement through
one of the most extensive internet censorship systems the world
has ever seen. Similarly, China's Digital Silk Road is not a
modern version of the Silk Road, but an intrusive ecosystem of
internet architecture and surveillance technology aiming to
expand the People's Republic of China's influence around the
world.
Sadly, the surveillance facilitated by such tools is a fact
of life for Chinese citizens, and increasingly for those who
live in countries that have adopted Chinese technology. Chinese
authorities' relentless persecution of predominantly Muslim
Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Central Asian people in the
country's Xinjiang region provides a disturbing preview of
these tools' misuse on an even broader scale. Residents are
tracked through surveillance drones, ubiquitous street cameras,
and the obligatory spyware apps on their phones.
As we all know, many of those who practice a religious
faith, including Christians in their churches, are now
subjected to ever-increasing amounts of surveillance. Even
China's COVID-19 tracking systems and apps that are supposed to
protect its citizens are instead used to categorize them via
different color codes according to their health status and
other personal data, which are then shared with the police.
This is not dystopian fiction, ``1984.'' This is China today.
Shockingly, U.S. companies have been complicit in helping
China build this techno-totalitarian state. In 2006, as you may
know, Mr. Chairman, I chaired a hearing where the
representatives of Google, Cisco, Yahoo, and Microsoft
testified as to their role in assisting the repression in
China. The year before, Yahoo had shared information with
China's secret police that led to the arrest and a 10-year jail
sentence of cyber dissident Shi Tao. Yahoo also handed over
data regarding one of its users, Li Zhi, who had criticized
corrupt local Chinese Communist Party officials in an online
discussion, for which he was sentenced to eight years in
prison.
We have now also seen companies like Thermo Fisher
Scientific provide equipment to security services in China for
a reputed genetic surveillance program. That was stated in the
company's 2019 announcement that it would stop selling its
equipment in Xinjiang in 2019, amid concerns raised by
scientists, human rights groups, and our Commission that the
authorities could use the tools to build systems to track
people. The New York Times recently reported that Thermo Fisher
equipment continues to be sold to police in Xinjiang.
American companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, not to
mention those companies who subsidize China's genocide Olympics
that was the subject of a few hearings that were held by this
Commission and by the Lantos Human Rights Commission, often
tout their commitment to corporate social responsibility
principles. Such virtue signaling is now commonplace and is a
form of marketing. Corporate social responsibility, however,
starts with U.S. global businesses recognizing that their sales
of technology products to China for use by China and its allies
furthers the interests of the government of China, and often
against its own people. Instead of virtue signaling, they
should take a stand against Chinese human rights abuses.
If we fail to affirm our foundational American principles,
including our commitment to freedom of expression and speech, I
fear that the digital authoritarianism of China will become the
new reality, increasingly, for all of us. Thank you, Chairman.
I yield back.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Congressman Smith.
I'd now like to introduce our panel. Geoffrey Cain is an
award-winning foreign correspondent, author, technologist, and
scholar of East and Central Asia. He is the author, most
recently, of ``The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey
into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.''
He's written for The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Time
magazine, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, and The Nation.
Samantha Hoffman is a senior analyst at the Australia
Policy Institute. Her work explores the domestic and global
implications of the Chinese Communist Party's approach to state
security, offering new ways of thinking about how to respond to
China's pursuit of artificial intelligence and big data-enabled
capabilities to augment political and social control.
Yaqiu Wang is a senior researcher on China at Human Rights
Watch, working on issues including internet censorship, freedom
of expression, protection of civil society and human rights
defenders, and women's rights. Her articles have appeared in
Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and
elsewhere. She has provided commentary to BBC, CNN, the New
York Times, and others.
Jonathan Hillman is a senior fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies and the director of the
Reconnecting Asia Project, one of the most extensive open-
source databases tracking China's Belt and Road Initiative. He
is the author of ``The Digital Silk Road: China's Quest to Wire
the World and Win the Future.'' Prior to joining CSIS, he
served as a policy advisor at the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative.
Now I'll ask the witnesses to deliver their testimony for
five minutes each, in the following order: Mr. Cain, Dr.
Hoffman, Ms. Wang, and then Mr. Hillman.
Mr. Cain, the floor is yours, and welcome.
STATEMENT OF GEOFFREY CAIN, AUTHOR OF ``THE PERFECT POLICE
STATE: AN UNDERCOVER ODYSSEY INTO CHINA'S TERRIFYING
SURVEILLANCE DYSTOPIA OF THE FUTURE''
Mr. Cain. Chairman Merkley, Co-chairman McGovern, and
members of the Commission, thank you, and it is an honor to be
invited to testify here today on China's surveillance apparatus
and the threat that it poses globally. Democracies around the
world are straddled with a grave and unprecedented problem, the
creation of new totalitarian surveillance technologies,
developed faster than we can implement the democratic laws,
norms, and checks and balances that will ensure that these
technologies do not fall into the wrong hands.
Today I will talk about a place where these technologies
have enabled genocide and crimes against humanity. I will talk
about the situation of the Uyghur population in China's western
region of Xinjiang, where about 1.8 million people have
languished in a network of hundreds of extrajudicial
concentration camps, out of an ethnic minority population of
about 11 million people. That's about one-tenth of the minority
population.
Since 2016, the People's Republic of China has engaged in
an unprecedented experiment in social control in this region.
It has deployed novel technologies in artificial intelligence,
facial recognition, voice recognition, and biometric data
collection to oppress its people in new and novel ways. In the
20th century, genocides took place in gas chambers and mass
graves. But in the 21st century, modern technology has allowed
the People's Republic of China to commit the beginnings of a
genocide, wiping out a people in silence, through cultural
erasure and forced sterilization. This all comes without the
use of mass physical violence and mass killings.
This is all documented in my book, ``The Perfect Police
State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying
Surveillance Dystopia of the Future,'' published in June 2020
by the Hachette Book Group. From August 2017 to February 2021,
I was an investigative journalist in China, Turkey, and
Kyrgyzstan, where I interviewed 168 Uyghur and Kazakh and other
refugees from different ethnic minorities. These refugees
consisted of former concentration camp detainees, their family
members, American and European diplomats tracking the
atrocities, former Chinese government officials, academics,
former Uyghur technology employees at major Chinese
corporations, and former Uyghur intelligence operatives from
the Ministry of State Security, a powerful body in China.
In December 2017, I made my final visit to Kashgar, the
Uyghur heartland, and Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang.
Within three days, I was detained and asked to leave. To
protect my data, my sources, and my own safety, I have not
returned. Uyghur and Kazakh refugees in interviews all told
similar stories about the region's descent into a total
surveillance dystopia. Most commonly, they recounted how
authorities from the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry
of State Security, and numerous Chinese technology firms such
as Huawei, Hikvision, SenseTime, Megvii, and many others have
innovated the technologies that are deployed for a dragnet.
The police then use these technologies for what
interviewees said was a system of mass psychological torture.
When refugees and former camp detainees say ``psychological
torture,'' they mean the feeling of constantly being watched,
not by humans, but by crude software algorithms designed to
predict future crimes and acts of terrorism with great
inaccuracy. The software platform, known as the IJOP, or the
Integrated Joint Operations Platform, gathers data from a
myriad of sources, including police human input, camera
surveillance, and criminal and court histories, according to
these former technology workers. For them, it was straight out
of the science fiction dystopias that they saw once they had
left the region, including ``Minority Report,'' the film with
Tom Cruise about a pre-crime unit that arrests and brainwashes
people, accusing them of future crimes that have never
happened.
These former technology workers told me about how the
system worked from the inside of the Chinese surveillance
apparatus. They said that artificial intelligence used data to
train a crude, simple algorithm and find correlations between
data points, and would then match up a number of unrelated,
outside factors to determine whether people would commit a
crime in the future. The system would then send a bump or nudge
to the smartphones of local police to investigate and detain an
individual for reasons often unclear to the human police using
the software. These reasons for detention could be as far-flung
as whether they went through the front or back door, whether
they began a physical exercise routine suddenly, or whether
they've had the flu and were simply late for work that day.
Without a human to oversee these decisions, refugees said
they were terrified at the prospect of doing anything that
departed from their daily schedules and might flag them as
potential criminals. They trained themselves to become like
machines or robots, able to answer every question from the
police in a preprogrammed way, repressing their own feelings,
thoughts, and desires in the process. These psychological
tactics have been well documented at the network of
concentration camps that now exist in the region of Xinjiang.
Refugees who have been there have described their fellow
detainees as lacking personality or expression, as if they had
had a memory wipe.
Their only way of surviving was to do what the camp guards
and teachers told them, without question. The surveillance
technology was designed to force them to deny their own reality
and internalize the thinking of the Chinese Communist Party. By
internalizing this propaganda, these detainees did exactly what
the apparatus wanted of them and that was to erase their own
internal sense of culture, heritage, community, and upbringing
which separated them and their culture from the dominant Han
Chinese population.
With that, there is certainly much that we can do to tackle
this problem. I am aware of time, so I will hand over the floor
to the next speaker. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Cain.
And now we're going to turn to Samantha Hoffman, who is
joining us from Australia. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF SAMANTHA HOFFMAN, SENIOR ANALYST, AUSTRALIAN
STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you, Chairman Merkley, Co-chair
McGovern, and members of the Commission. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak today on this important topic.
I'd like to begin with a brief explanation of what I think
the appropriate definition of techno-authoritarianism is, which
is that when we're talking about authoritarian technology, we
are really talking about the ways that technology is attached
to existing methods of political and social control, and
economic management as well, in the PRC. So oftentimes while we
tend to focus on the most coercive applications of technology,
we sometimes tend to overlook the more everyday applications of
technology and the way that that enhances authoritarian power
as well.
With that, I'd like to go over three core assessments and
offer some policy recommendations. I'd like to note that
throughout my testimony I offer some charts that help to
explain the concepts I'll go over. And I'm happy to answer more
in Q&A.
So, the core assessments. First, assumptions that liberal
democracy would automatically be strengthened, and
authoritarians would automatically be weakened when the world
became digitally interconnected have been proven false.
Democracies are not going to self-correct in response to the
problems created by authoritarian applications of technology.
Competing with China in this space--it's not simply about
winning or losing a race in terms of R&D of emerging and
critical technologies such as AI or data science and storage
technologies. Leadership in R&D in these areas is essential,
not least to guarantee supply chain resilience, but just as
consequential is the competition taking place in the conceptual
space. So for the United States and like-minded countries to
stay ahead, they must innovate in thinking about use cases in
order to also set boundaries, so that these technologies can
positively affect society without also undermining liberal
democratic values.
Second, the ability to identify and protect strategic data
will become an increasingly complex and vital national security
task, especially under the conditions of China's military-civil
fusion strategy. Knowing how particular datasets are collected
and used by foreign adversaries, and imagining potential use
cases, will be an essential part of ranking which datasets
should be prioritized for protection. Developing effective
countermeasures requires understanding the implications of the
fact that the Chinese party-state conceives of the usefulness
of data in a strategic competition in ways that go beyond
traditional intelligence collection.
Finally, we cannot measure risk based on today's
capabilities alone. Technology evolves on a trajectory. To
develop effective policy responses requires assuming that the
challenges China faces today in realizing the optimal outcomes
of the application of technology to its authoritarian
governance may not be as significant in the future, as the
concepts increasingly catch up with capabilities.
The areas of policy I think we need to focus on, I think
that we oftentimes--too often offer prescriptive solutions,
when actually we haven't clearly identified the problem yet. So
with that, I'd like to recommend for U.S. policy that time be
spent to recalibrate data security policy and privacy
frameworks to account for the fact of the Chinese party-state's
use of data to reinforce its political monopoly. Oftentimes,
companies and governments assume that their data and privacy
regulations share the same goals as the other, which isn't true
when it comes to the Chinese party-state and PRC companies.
Even if common vocabularies are used or if some policy drivers
are similar, in the PRC, unlike in liberal democracies, data
security and privacy concepts--including legislation on data
security in the personal information protection law recently--
reinforce the party-state's monopoly on power. So companies and
governments--the United States included--need to recognize this
risk and calibrate their policies to account for it.
Second, the United States should collaborate with like-
minded countries to develop systems for improving risk-based
approaches to improving the regulation of data transfers.
Organizations and governments must be able to assess the value
of their data and the value of that data to any party in their
supply chain who may have access to it downstream.
Finally--I'm aware I'm running out of time--governments
must take a multidisciplinary approach to due diligence.
Governments, as well as businesses and organizations, need to
develop frameworks for conducting supply-chain reviews that
take into account country-specific policy drivers. Developing
such a framework shouldn't be limited to just assessing the
vendor's risk of exposure to political risk. It should also
include detailed analysis of the downstream actors who have
access to the vendor's data. And it must include analysis of
things such as the broader data ecosystem of which they're a
part and the obligations that the vendors within that ecosystem
have to their governments. Taking this more holistic approach
to due diligence will better ensure that data can be protected
in a more effective way.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
Chair Merkley. Thank you so much, Ms. Hoffman.
And now we're going to turn to Yaqiu Wang. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF YAQIU WANG, SENIOR RESEARCHER
ON CHINA, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Ms. Wang. Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, members of
the Commission, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this
issue dear to my heart. I owe my presence here today to the
relative internet freedom China once had, and America's
commitment to freedom of information. I was born and grew up in
China. As a teenager, every day I would go online and listen to
Voice of America's ``Special English,'' a news program
broadcast in slow-speed English. That's how I started to learn
English, and that's also how I and many others in China got
information uncensored by the Chinese government.
That was 15 years ago, and Beijing has since gotten so much
better at controlling the internet. It's not only that many
foreign websites are blocked, that people inside China can't
access websites outside of China, but also that many people
from China who now live in the U.S.--with the free internet
readily accessible to them--they would still go back to the
censored Chinese internet to get news information.
I'd like to use my five minutes to focus on WeChat and
TikTok, two Chinese apps that have a significant presence in
the U.S. First and foremost, it's essential to remember that
all Chinese tech companies are subject to the control of the
Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese diaspora heavily relies on
the super-app WeChat for information, communication, and
political organizing. This heavy reliance on this one app for
everything gives Beijing huge latitude to shape the diaspora's
views in ways more favorable to the CCP. It allows Beijing to
know a lot about the people who have left China, down to things
like who is meeting whom, at what time, and where, and it also
allows Beijing to potentially mobilize an important demographic
in the U.S.
Earlier this year, a network of fake social media accounts
linked to the Chinese government attempted, but failed, to draw
Americans out to real-world protests against racial injustice.
The reason we know about this is because it happened on
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube--American tech companies that
are comparatively more transparent, that periodically disclose
influence operations, and that are under more public scrutiny.
We do not know whether similar schemes targeting the Chinese
diaspora are happening on WeChat, because it's hard to do
research.
Then there is TikTok, which has far, deep reach into the
lives of the American public, especially young people. One
thing lawmakers need to understand is that what you see on
TikTok is not so much decided by who you follow, but by the
company's algorithm. There is no way for outsiders to know what
information is being suppressed or promoted on TikTok that is
due to the Chinese government's influence. If you search the
hashtag #Xinjiang, you will find many, many videos with smiling
and dancing Uyghurs, but not so many videos about the camps and
surveillance and the human rights suffering. Why is this the
case? We don't know.
In short, there is a lot we don't know about what Chinese
tech companies are doing in the U.S., what is being censored,
promoted, and suppressed, and how data is being accessed, used,
and shared, and to what extent it's the Chinese government that
is telling them to do these things. But we can know that and
it's up to you, people in Congress, to make it happen. Congress
has recently increased its scrutiny of American tech companies.
Chinese tech companies' rising popularity in the U.S. and their
ties to the Chinese government should give added urgency to
passing laws to require tech companies to be more transparent
in their operation and to protect user data.
Lastly, here I speak not as an expert but as a member of
the Chinese immigrant community in America. I urge the U.S.
Government to invest in Chinese language journalism and media.
Making fact-based information available in our native language
is one of the most effective ways to counter Beijing's malign
influence. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Ms. Wang.
And we now turn to Mr. Jonathan Hillman. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN HILLMAN, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Hillman. Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, members
of the Commission, thank you for holding this important
hearing.
Briefly, I'd like to underscore four points from my written
testimony, which focuses on China's Digital Silk Road. First,
China is positioning itself as the developing world's primary
provider of digital infrastructure, and it stands to reap both
commercial and strategic benefits in the coming years if it is
uncontested. There is an urgency to China's activities, which
are expanding out of necessity and opportunity. As China's tech
companies face greater scrutiny in advanced economies, they are
doubling down in the developing world. Huawei, for example, in
recent years has signed dozens of deals with foreign
governments to provide cloud infrastructure and e-government
services.
There's also great demand for digital infrastructure.
Nearly half of the world still lacks access to reliable
internet. Africa, which has about 17 percent of the world's
population, has less than 1 percent of the world's installed
data center capacity. So the opportunity for growth is vast.
The United States can engage with these emerging economies and
benefit U.S. workers and companies, or it can allow China to
cement a position of strength.
Second, security concerns, serious as they are, will not
win this competition. In much of the world, cost trumps
security. Competing will require expanding the availability of
affordable, responsible alternatives. Consider China's ``safe
city'' exports, which its companies claim will reduce crime,
increase economic growth, and even help fight the pandemic.
Those promises, packaged with financing, can give the
impression that these systems will essentially pay for
themselves. But we know that these systems are also vulnerable.
In addition to raising serious human rights concerns, there
are basic questions about their performance or examples of
systems failing or not delivering the benefits they promise.
These shortcomings open the door for the United States and its
allies to offer responsible alternatives. Decisionmakers in
developing countries need more than a reason to say no to
China's offers. They need something to say yes to. They're
looking for partners that promote development without fueling
dependency.
Third, the United States has several advantages that it can
leverage to compete. U.S. companies are playing catch-up in 5G
in some respects, but they remain ahead in several important
areas, as well as in emerging technologies that could shift the
playing field in favor of U.S. interests. For example, U.S.
companies are leading efforts to provide global broadband from
Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations. U.S. companies offer
top-quality cloud services, ``smart city'' systems, and data
centers.
In other words, the United States already has many of the
essential ingredients to compete, but in some cases it needs to
do a better job of bringing those ingredients together and
competing on cost. The United States has another powerful asset
that China does not, a network of partners and allies. Several
promising efforts are underway to mobilize and operationalize
common concerns about China's digital activities and provide
alternatives, including the G-7's Build Back Better World
partnership, the Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership, the
Blue Dot Network, and efforts through the Quad and the U.S.-EU
Trade and Technology Council. All of these efforts will need
resources to succeed.
Finally, Congress and the executive branch have important
roles to play in helping the United States win this
competition, even though this competition is often happening in
the private sector. They can help sharpen the U.S. toolkit by
enabling the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation
to do more, expanding the U.S. Commercial Service, and updating
defense partnerships to include a greater focus on technology.
And they can expand the availability of affordable alternatives
by making additional resources available for the Build Back
Better World partnership and related allied efforts, supporting
technical assistance and capacity-building programs overseas,
and using trade policy to lead on digital issues.
Additional recommendations are included in my written
testimony. Clearly, none of this is going to be cheap, easy, or
fast, but the United States has much to offer the developing
world and much to gain by expanding the availability of
affordable, responsible alternatives. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you all very much for your testimony.
We're now going to turn to opportunities for Members of
Congress to ask questions. We ask you to keep your responses
fairly brief and to the point so that we can get in as many
questions as possible.
I will start, Mr. Cain, with your observation that
individuals--for example, Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region--
experience continuous monitoring by technology, and that that
monitoring is directed into a system--the Integrated Joint
Operations Platform--which then triggers various officials to
go and question individuals. And that that can result from
which door they used, whether they were late for work, whether
they had changes in their physical exercise--all of which
pushes people into a kind of robotic world in which they are
extraordinarily careful about what they say and what they do.
In addition, not just about how they conduct themselves daily
but erasing their sense of culture and heritage.
What you're describing does kind of feel like it's out of a
science fiction future, but it's here today and the
technologies are increasing very quickly. As you look down the
road, do you see China expanding the use of these technologies
into additional communities within China? Are you seeing that
authoritarian figures around the world are seeking out this
Chinese model and technologies to be able to use these
strategies within their own countries? And if so, if you could
give us a couple of examples, it would be helpful.
Mr. Cain. Certainly. Thank you. So, yes, I do
wholeheartedly agree with the assessment you just gave that
this does feel like a science fiction novel. When I was in
Xinjiang, it truly felt as if I was walking through the George
Orwell world of ``1984.'' So, to answer the second part of your
question, there has already been a widespread attempt by both
Chinese technology companies, with the support of Chinese
Communist Party officials, to expand the use of these
technologies, often under the guise of projects called safe
cities, or under the guise of fighting crime or law
enforcement, but often in reality used by authoritarian
governments or quasi-authoritarian governments around the world
to oppress their political opponents and dissidents, and other
people whom they find troublesome.
In my written testimony, I did list a few examples that
have been reported in recent years. These reports picked up in
2019 and have been continuing to pick up more. This is not a
problem that's ending in any way soon. To give one example
here, in 2019 the government of Uzbekistan, as reported in the
Wall Street Journal, announced that it was going to adopt a
safe city system in its capital, Tashkent, with 883 cameras. In
very Orwellian terms, the government announced that they would
use these cameras and this system to ``digitally manage
political affairs.'' Just keep in mind, this is an
authoritarian government with a deep history of harassing and
imprisoning dissidents.
Another example is Uganda in sub-Saharan Africa. The Wall
Street Journal reported in August 2019 that technicians from
Huawei, the major technology firm that makes smartphones and
servers, helped the government access the Facebook pages,
phones, and messages of opposition bloggers who were
criticizing the president. Now, Huawei did deny this
allegation, but some of its employees have stated repeatedly in
the press that they see their role as simply providing the
technology and not necessarily following up on its political
uses or human rights considerations.
Those are two examples I can name. I hope that my
information answers your question. Was there anything else you
would like to ask me to go over?
Chair Merkley. Thank you. Right now that's great. I wanted
to get those examples into the record and just note that we
anticipate that this will spread to additional countries where
authoritarian governments are seeking to control targeted
populations or their population as a whole.
I want to turn to Ms. Wang. Ms. Wang, you noted that the
diaspora of China uses WeChat. I assume that this is because,
one, they're familiar with it, and two, it gives them a
connection to their extended family and friends back in China.
But you note that one of your recommendations is that we should
pursue open-source technology that would provide people in
China the ability to circumvent censorship more easily and, I
assume, folks outside of China to also be able to communicate
and avoid the Chinese control of that social media. What
prevents China from simply blocking such alternative open-
source technology? Is there a feasible technological route to
bypass WeChat?
Ms. Wang. Thank you for your question. There are currently
ways to bypass China's Great Firewall, but it's always a cat
and mouse game. There are VPNs available, and the Chinese
government blocks those VPNs. Then there are more new ways to
circumvent the censorship. Then the Chinese government blocks
them again. So it's always, you know, the creativity to create
new ways to circumvent the censorship competing with the
Chinese government's own creativity to block it. So I think in
order to win this war we need more investment in those
technologies. We need to get better than the Chinese government
at circumventing the internet censorship.
There are investments currently by the U.S. Government on
those too, but I think in previous years there were two, but
they are not open-source technologies. With open-source
technologies, the third party can look into those technologies
to make sure they're transparent--they don't have loopholes. So
if people around the world can work together--I mean, I attend
those off-the-record conferences talking to app developers who
have a heart for internet freedom, and they work together. And
I think the U.S. Government can play a role to make this happen
in a better way. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much.
Co-chair McGovern.
Co-chair McGovern. Thank you.
Mr. Hillman, this month's cover story for The Atlantic,
entitled ``The Bad Guys Are Winning,'' is about an alliance of
autocrats, and notes that the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the
Egyptians not only detained and deported Uyghurs, but have also
purchased Chinese surveillance technology. In which countries
has the Chinese model of mass surveillance and censorship
advanced the furthest? And what U.S. programs can promote
sustainable, transparent, global infrastructure financing as
alternatives to Belt and Road? And if not, are there gaps in
U.S. authorities or tools that Congress could address to
bolster these programs?
Mr. Hillman. Thank you for the question. You know, there
are too many--unfortunately, too many examples to name of these
safe city projects overseas. We did a study in 2018 just of
Huawei's safe city projects. We found 73 agreements across 52
countries, with a lot of that activity in Asia and Africa.
Pakistan, I believe, had the most agreements of any single
country. I think that there is an opportunity here for the
United States and its allies to offer a superior alternative. I
mean, we're actually already cooperating in some ways on this
technology. The city of Las Vegas has a smart city that is
provided in part by Dell, a U.S. company, and by NTT, a
Japanese company.
I think we need to do more, though, to set standards that
are going to drive this competition--to compete at a higher
level, rather than being a race to the bottom. I would love to
see an allied alternative for a sustainable city that
emphasizes environmental sustainability, that emphasizes social
responsibility, that emphasizes data security. We have the
companies who are working in these areas. I think we need to
bring it together. And we need to offer financing. I think your
question about whether we can do more--does the U.S. Government
have the tools it needs--is a really important question,
because what we see China doing is effectively selling products
that are not the best but come with low costs and financing.
And that's a very attractive proposition and sometimes
difficult to turn down.
One really concrete improvement that could be made is to
allow the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to do more with
its equity authority. That's a new authority that the DFC has,
but its hands are a little bit tied right now in terms of its
ability to use that authority. I think that's really one area
where Congress and the executive branch could make a change
that would make a difference. Thanks.
Co-chair McGovern. Thank you.
Ms. Hoffman, your testimony calls for collaboration with
like-minded countries to develop systems for improving risk-
based approaches to improving the regulation of data transfers.
Can you give us a sense of the bureaucratic landscape and
challenges in this? Which department should be the lead, or
does this require top-level direction from the White House?
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you. I think I'll first just say that
the biggest issue with our current risk-based assessment is
that we tend to assume that technology is either good or bad,
and we look at this issue in a black and white way. But really
what we're talking about with a lot of digital and data-driven
technologies, certainly the ones covered in my testimony, is
that they're always, in a sense, and for lack of a better term,
dual use, because data derived from these technologies can be
valuable for many different reasons, and it largely depends on
the intent of the actor who has access to that data--what they
intend to do with it.
And it could be multiple things. You could be talking about
problem solving and you could talk about enhancing capacity for
control. In my testimony, for instance, I give an example of
technologies--or different databases, essentially, that all
feed into normal, everyday problem solving, traffic management,
but then also political and legal control, feeding into the
national defense mobilization system. So there are a number of
ways that the technologies can be used to contribute value--or
these datasets can contribute value to a lot of different
things at once.
So that being said, I think that this requires really a
whole-of-government approach. Of course, leadership from the
White House is encouraged on this issue, but I think that
there's not any one particular department that can lead on
this. I think that the main thing that needs to be done
actually is, we need to invest in the kind of research that
would allow us to decide a better metric for judging risk,
because right now the way that we do that is quite black and
white. We look at the security implications of technology but
forget--for instance, I wrote a paper on a company called
Global Telecommunications Technology, which provides
translation services. But with the data that it collects--it's
a company that's controlled by China's central propaganda
department--it embeds its products in Huawei and Ali Cloud and
other places, it collects data in 67 languages and uses that to
support propaganda. So there are different ways that we have to
imagine risk. And right now we don't have the correct toolkit
to be able to respond.
Co-chair McGovern. Thank you. I'm going to ask one more
question--I don't know if I can fit it in a minute here--but,
Mr. Cain, I want to thank you for your endorsement of the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. You know, one of the
challenges with ensuring that goods are not made with forced
labor is the unreliability of audits, such as the
administration's Xinjiang Business Advisory notes. Do you think
that the extreme levels of surveillance in Xinjiang add to that
unreliability? And does it mean that monitored workers are
unable to speak freely about their experiences to auditors
without risk of exposure?
Mr. Cain. Yes. Yes, that is correct, and I think that this
has been well documented now in numerous news sources and
academic reports on the region. There is a serious problem of
extreme surveillance simply overpowering whatever audit
function can exist within your typical multinational or
American corporation that operates in the region of Xinjiang.
There have been reports already of corporate auditors being
sent to the region to fulfill these audits, but they have been
detained and harassed by authorities in Xinjiang.
Just on the basis of that alone, we can reasonably conclude
that whatever information is being given to the auditors who
might be succeeding in obtaining some degree of information,
it's deeply unreliable and almost certainly covers up the fact
that there is a massive problem in the region of this slavery
and forced labor. I just don't quite see a way around that when
you consider that the surveillance is so deep. I think that in
whatever legislation is to hopefully be passed eventually,
there must be a presumption--a rebuttable presumption that
whatever goods or whatever exports are originating in Xinjiang
have been touched by forced labor in some way.
Co-chair McGovern. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Congressman Smith.
Representative Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you to our very distinguished witnesses. Tremendous
testimony. Let me just very briefly--I mentioned that hearing
that I did in 2006 with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco.
Four of them. I asked them under oath, because I swore them all
in, how do they respond when somebody says they want personally
identifiable information about a dissident or human rights
activist? And they said they just follow orders--reminiscent of
another regime going back to the 1930s. Just following orders
to give up all of this information, and many people went to
prison because of it. The multi-decade transfer of technology
that has enabled this brutal dictatorship called the Chinese
Communist Party is just appalling.
Maybe our distinguished witnesses might want to speak to
that New York Times piece, ``China Still Buys American DNA
Equipment for Xinjiang Despite Blocks.'' I mean, that was
October 22nd, a couple of weeks ago. You know, Ms. Wang, you
made some really great points about WeChat and TikTok, how they
store information for at least six months. I wonder if the
diaspora is in any way aware of that, that this is all being
stored. You know, Google, under a great deal of pressure, gives
people the ability--at least at 18 months--to get rid of some
of the information that they seem to store forever. And I'm
wondering, has anybody been arrested pursuant to the
information that has been stored on WeChat, or people back home
harassed? Because it's just sitting there like low-hanging
fruit for the ubiquitous Chinese secret police to do whatever
they want.
And finally, I have a lot of questions but there's not
enough time--we in a bipartisan way keep pushing for stronger
enforcement, good laws. And yet I'm wondering if it's being
prioritized sufficiently. You know, it's one thing to say we're
all for you, we want to make sure that the internet and
certainly all of these apps are not being used to track and to
incarcerate, but is it being prioritized sufficiently within
the U.S. Department of State--the past administration, as well
as this one? I don't want to be in any way partisan because I
have been unhappy with all Democrats and Republicans since
Speaker Pelosi and I and others so vigorously oppose MFN
without human rights conditionality. You know, you don't trade
with a dictatorship and think they're somehow going to
matriculate to a democracy. They get more potent and more
capabilities to do wrong.
So if you could speak to those issues. Ms. Wang, maybe I'll
start with you.
Ms. Wang. Thank you for your question. I'm a member of the
Chinese immigrant community here. I would just simply say that
it's impossible not to use WeChat to live your life. I don't
have WeChat on this phone, but I have WeChat on another phone,
just to separate the data. You know, for example, if I go to a
Chinese restaurant, they offer a discount and that discount
only exists on the app, on WeChat. You cannot get the discount
through your Facebook or other social media app. I wanted to
mail something back to China, and I have to use WeChat in order
for this to work.
Because of that kind of ecosystem--so, you know, among
immigrants in the United States, we are living here, have a job
here, we communicate with each other on WeChat. Just this
convenience provided by WeChat sucks us into the system. I
mean, you know, the question is whether we are aware of the
problem. Obviously, we know that the government censors,
surveils our communication. But I think that people are just
resigned to the fact that this is our way of living. I mean, I
make a concerted effort--I only have WeChat on another phone.
When I need to use it, I use that phone. For most people--I
mean, if you just have a day job that you work as an
accountant, what's the point, right?
So that allows the Chinese government to have huge latitude
to collect information and shape views. You know, one good
example I would give is that in the past there were local
newspapers in New York, where I live, that cater to the Chinese
diaspora. Now in order for the local newspapers to be read by
the Chinese diaspora here, those newspapers have to go through
WeChat, because people only read the news on WeChat. So in a
way, the local news information catering to the Chinese
diaspora has to go through Beijing censorship before it
delivers to you. That is the kind of control the Chinese
government is able to exert on the Chinese diaspora.
Whether there is evidence that people have been arrested
because of what they say on WeChat, I mean, yes. There is a
good story done by the New York Times: There is a woman who
lives in Canada. She was just using WeChat, talking--I think
she criticized the Chinese government. When she went back to
China, she got arrested. It's all because of what she said in
Canada. This is a story that is disclosed, and she is willing
to talk about it. I'm sure there are many stories of people who
have no awareness that their communication is being looked at,
and when they go back to China, they get detained. Thank you.
Representative Smith. Thank you, Ms. Wang. Would anybody
else like to speak to the prioritization of this issue? Is it
being sufficiently prioritized within the U.S. Government?
Ms. Hoffman. I'd be happy to speak.
Representative Smith. Please, thank you, Dr. Hoffman.
Ms. Hoffman. I think, first, and just to reiterate the
points that Ms. Wang just made, I know so many stories, just in
interviews that I've conducted and through my own network, of
people who have been harassed for their digital communications
while they were overseas. And in some cases--I know of one
particular disturbing case where the person concerned and their
family were both permanent residents or citizens of liberal
democracies. And the family, in one case, was harassed by
Chinese embassy authorities about the other family member's
activity online, and they were harassed in person. Sorry to be
vague, but I think it's important to protect the identity of
those people. And I know of other cases along similar lines,
where people received threats online as well. It's a very real
problem.
Now, in terms of the prioritization, I think that--I mean,
I'll always say that the U.S. Government and other governments
around the world aren't prioritizing these issues enough. But I
will say that increasingly there is an awareness of the
problem. I think that the issue is that sometimes we think
that--okay, now that we're aware--we'll solve the problem,
whereas I don't think we've adequately defined it yet. And
that's why in my testimony I talk a little bit more about how
we conceptualize the issue of tech authoritarianism.
We're not just talking about the most coercive use of
technology. We're also talking about the export of normal,
everyday problem-solving technologies not just to other
authoritarian or illiberal regimes, but to democracies,
including the United States. And so until we adequately define
the problem, many policy responses that we develop aren't going
to truly address the nature of the problem. And so my concern
is that we're sometimes jumping ahead with solutions before
we've identified the problem.
Representative Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you, Congressman.
Representative Smith. Thanks.
Chair Merkley. We're now turning to Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you to all
the witnesses and for the truths that you're bringing to light.
It's exceptionally helpful to be able to continue to get the
facts to the forefront.
I do have some follow-up here that I want to be able to
talk to Ms. Hoffman about. Mr. Hillman had mentioned there are
52 countries right now that they know of that have the ``safe
cities'' technology. My question is, How is the Chinese
government using that data in these 52 different countries that
have the safe cities technology? Not how those countries are
using it, how is China using that data that they're then
harvesting from those 52 countries that are using the ``safe
cities'' technology?
Mr. Hillman. Thanks, sir, for your question. You know, I
think there's evidence--some of this is tough to study in open
sources--but there's evidence to suggest that there are
vulnerabilities in these projects that are putting at risk the
data in the countries that are using them, and potentially
giving access to that data to Chinese authorities. So for
example, in Pakistan there's actually a legal case underway
with a county that was involved in developing a safe city
project there that alleges that it was forced to install a
backdoor that would allow access to data from Beijing. There's
also been examples of hardware being discovered on surveillance
cameras where Pakistani engineers were not initially made aware
of that hardware; you know, hardware that could allow you to
gain access remotely to those systems.
So you know, we see these examples of data challenges. You
know, there's another good example in Papua New Guinea, which
borrowed money from China and allowed Huawei to build a data
center there. When a third party did a study of that data
center, the conclusion that they reached was that the security
was so poorly designed that it was probably intentionally
designed that way. So I think that there's ample signs to be
concerned about some of the espionage risk. There's also, in
some cases, a commercial incentive for China's large providers
of surveillance equipment to collect data on foreign
populations so that they can improve their algorithms and the
ability of their algorithms to recognize foreign faces, for
example.
Sometimes I've heard just anecdotally that giving access to
that data might result in getting some preferential financing
for the project. So there's both an intelligence concern here
as well as a potential commercial angle for some of the Chinese
companies that are involved.
Senator Lankford. Ms. Hoffman, do you want to add to that?
Ms. Hoffman. Yes, thank you. One issue that I'd like to
cover is the way that Chinese companies can draw value out of
data without any sort of malicious disruption or break-in,
because I think oftentimes we focus on the risk of espionage
with PRC technologies. But the other part we miss is that with
a company--any company, like Huawei, Alibaba, others--they are
providing a service. And at the same time, you know, it depends
on who sits within their supply chain. There could be automatic
access to the kinds of data that they collect. That's described
in my written testimony. It's the first figure I think that
helps to explain that concept a little bit more. But then it's
also the concept that I described in a paper from 2019 called
``Engineering Global Consent'' about the propaganda department
company I mentioned earlier.
Now, that being said, I think that the recent Data Security
Law as well as the Personal Information Protection Law in the
PRC further illustrate what we already know about the way that
the Chinese party-state can exert pressure on companies and
other individuals and entities to access data whenever it
chooses. So in particular, the Data Security Law says that data
security in China is governed by the state security concept,
which is ultimately about the party-state's political security.
And that's what makes it different from national security. And
it also says in article 2 of the law that data handling
activities taking place outside the PRC, when those activities
are seen to harm state security, or the public interest and the
lawful rights and interests of citizens and organizations in
the PRC, then they can be pursued for legal responsibility in
accordance with the law.
Now, what could be harming state security? Well, that could
be the political opponents of the CCP we were discussing
earlier. But it could be anything that the party-state sees as
potentially undermining its power, and so essentially there are
no limits to the party-state's power in this case. Companies
might say, Well, we don't want to hand over data, we're not
going to do that. But ultimately, if they're operating in the
PRC and they're based in the PRC, they're bound by PRC law.
Senator Lankford. So if there is a company that's a
Chinese-owned company that's a ``privately owned,'' non-state-
owned company that's functioning in the United States or in any
other country, and they're sending data back to China, that
data can be owned and can be captured then by the Chinese
government, or the actions of that company can be overseen by
the Chinese government, correct?
Ms. Hoffman. Yes.
Senator Lankford. Ms. Wang, there's been a lot of
conversation about a social score for Chinese citizens--that in
the surveillance state that they live under, that they're all
graded internally and receive some sort of score even to get
access to mass transportation, to jobs, to moving, to being
able to have the ability to travel overseas. What do you know
about this social scoring of individuals in China?
Ms. Wang. The social credit score system, in its current
form it's mostly a blacklist. So, for example, if you have not
fulfilled your obligations, such as, you know, you had a loan
that you didn't pay on time, then you would be on this list and
then it would affect your daily life. When you go to the train
station you cannot buy a ticket because of your record of not
paying a loan. And it doesn't only affect you. It also affects
your family. And there are instances where children cannot be
enrolled in the school system because their parents have not
paid a loan. So it's like punishment--guilty by association.
I mean, currently the data has not been integrated. In
different localities there are different systems. And it is the
Chinese government's ultimate goal to have all the data
integrated into one giant database so they can have access to
it, and no matter where you're based, take it and exact
punishment against you based on whatever things you have done.
I mean, look at the health code that was developed during
COVID--right now, this health code is being used against
political dissidents and human rights lawyers because you have
to have the code to travel. It has to be a green code. But as a
human rights lawyer, you are here for the past few months; you
have done nothing. And you have a red code. And, you know, it's
a health code. It shows that you are a health risk. But this
has nothing to do with your actual health situation. It's
entirely that you're a human rights lawyer and now you have a
red code, and you cannot travel.
So the point is that the government can construe it as,
``We try to build a social credit system that is for the good
of society,'' but it can be used in other ways, to carry out
their political goals. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much. We're now going to turn
to Congresswoman Steel, to be followed by Senator King, and
then Congressman Suozzi, and then Senator Ossoff.
Congresswoman Steel.
Representative Steel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
very much, and thank you to all the witnesses for coming out
today because this is a very important issue. China continues
to shape and abuse the global rule-based system and China
cannot be a transparent world leader and continue to strip Hong
Kong's rightful freedoms and autonomy and allow forced labor in
the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and world leaders cannot
continue to allow China to abuse its own citizens and threaten
those who live in other countries, too.
So all the witnesses, whoever can answer these questions--
and I'm just so grateful for that--the United States called
China out for their abuses in development of a 5G network. Yet,
many U.S. companies are investing in China's semiconductor
industry. So what threat does that pose? And what message does
that send to the rest of the world? If any witness can answer,
I'm grateful.
Mr. Cain. So, yes, without a doubt the problem of major
multinational corporations and American corporations investing
in the Chinese semiconductor industry, which is heavily state
backed, which has the enormous support of various state
coalitions and bodies within China, is a major threat to both
American industrial and security interests. This is something
that, speaking more historically, there has long been an
American business interest in investing in East Asian
semiconductor markets. Japan was the original one, then South
Korea, Taiwan, and now the People's Republic of China is trying
to build its own semiconductor industry. And this has been
going on for about two decades now. It's one of the core
technologies to ensuring that these surveillance technologies
can actually function.
But I would just like to point out that there is a bill
that has been on the floor already--let me just double check--I
think it was the House, yes, introduced in 2020, the CHIPS for
America Act, which is H.R. 7178. You know, I read the
legislation. I thought it was very well written. It was a bill
that I came upon in my own research. You know, it was just
something that popped up, and I think it does do potentially
great work because it offers subsidies and investments to
ensure that America can continue to produce its own
semiconductors and that we can bring manufacturing home. I
think this is ultimately the solution to protecting our
interests and our own democracy and security from infiltration
and from the meddling of the Chinese Communist Party.
Representative Steel. Thank you very much for that answer
because we have a supply chain crisis, too. Manufacturing
companies coming back here and then we are building our own
here. I think it's going to make life much easier, and we can
stop China from abusing these businesses.
My second question is, China must abide by international
laws. If they fail to do so, the U.S. and democratic partners
must hold China accountable. It's very, very tough to do
because they're not really transparent. So as China becomes a
leader in artificial intelligence, how dangerous is this to the
future threat of human rights abuse that they are doing right
now? And do China's digital currency plans add to this abuse?
Ms. Hoffman. I'd be happy to comment on that. I did some
research last year on China's digital currency and I think
that's actually a great--I don't feel like I'm an expert
particularly on digital currencies, but on DCEP (China's
Digital Currency Electronic Payment system) I think the most
interesting thing is actually the technology itself, rather
than the currency, the concept of the digital yuan. I think
it's the technology behind it. Now, it's all very much in
development, and I think that this is an area where other
countries can get ahead.
But I think that the same issue with digital currency-
related technologies, as with anything else ``smart cities''-
related, if China is ahead in setting standards--what I tend to
look at would be that domestically it's technical committees
that are setting standards. And those involved--say, if you're
talking about facial recognition systems that can involve the
PLA, research institutes and People's Armed Police, or Ministry
of Public Security research institutes, along with companies
like Huawei and Dahua and others--then those technologies, when
they're exported, would be used to embed those standards that
are being designed within the PRC.
So in order to get ahead of any potential violations of
human rights or undermining of liberal democracy, I think
that's where we need to get ahead in terms of standards
setting. And that's where we also need a lot more research. And
DCEP is an interesting issue because it's still very much in
development. So while it's not necessarily a threat today, it's
potentially an issue that we will face a number of years down
the line. And so getting ahead of it, from a policy
perspective, is encouraged so that we don't continue with the
sort of whack-a-mole approach that's been taken with companies
like Huawei.
Representative Steel. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much. We'll now turn to
Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a
fascinating hearing. And I think it's interesting to note that
George Orwell was right as a matter of fiction back when
``1984'' was written. I thought he was wrong in the '80s when
the fax machine and mobile phones allowed a flowering of
individual rights across the world and in fact contributed in
the early part of this century to the Arab Spring. Now we're
learning he was right because technology is being used
aggressively for repressive purposes.
Ms. Wang, a couple of questions. Are the Chinese people
aware of the level of internet censorship? Do they know they're
not getting the whole picture? I'm talking about ordinary
people who are, you know, a clerk in a factory who goes home
and goes on the internet. Do they know that they're being
censored?
Ms. Wang. I think people generally have an idea, but I
think the censorship in recent years has gotten so bad that,
you know, people have a general awareness that ``my
conversation is being censored, I don't get the full picture.''
But they don't know exactly which information is being
censored. I can speak for my family, because many members of my
own family believe that COVID-19 originated from the U.S.
because the Chinese government just has been so heavy on
propagating this idea. It's hard to talk them out of it. And
you know, they are in China. They haven't gone out of China for
several years. And they don't have alternative information.
And----
Senator King. So the Chinese people are as subject to
disinformation as we are?
Ms. Wang. Yes. I mean, the Chinese government has much
latitude in spreading disinformation inside the country, so
there's no counterinformation. They are the only spreader of
disinformation.
Senator King. So, to answer my question, you said people
are somewhat aware. The second one is: Are they aware of the
extent to which they're being surveilled?
Ms. Wang. I would say that people have a general idea that,
in terms of specific people, people don't believe that the
Chinese government would look into how you talk to your wife,
until one day the government--the police summonses you saying,
``You know, you were chatting with your wife; you were
badmouthing the police.'' And then you say, ``Wow, I can't
believe they're looking into this.'' Because people just
generally think, ``What's the point? I'm nobody. Why are you
looking at me?''
Senator King. But they are aware?
Ms. Wang. Generally, yes. Generally. But they wouldn't
think specifically. People think that the government is looking
at everybody, but why me, right? It's like everybody has an
equal chance of being hit by the bus. Only when you get hit by
the bus do you say, ``Oh, it happened to me right now.''
Senator King. So as people are gaining awareness of (A),
the extent to which information is being censored, (B), the
extent to which they're being fed information that may not be
true by the government, and (C), that they're being surveilled,
is there any resistance? Is there any resentment? Is there
any--does anybody care about this?
Ms. Wang. There absolutely is resentment. One obvious
example is after the early days of COVID, which, you know,
spread because the Chinese government initially suppressed the
information, you can just see----
Senator King. Do people know that? Do they know that people
died because of the government's actions?
Ms. Wang. Initially, yes. Yes, people are aware the local
Wuhan government was suppressing information.
Senator King. So my question is, are they angry? Are they
resentful? Is there any resistance being built up? Is this
developing political resistance to the surveillance state, or
is it hopeless?
Ms. Wang. Well, I think initially people were very angry
when COVID just happened. But then later the government was so
good at disinformation. You know, they were saying, We did such
a good job of trying to contain the virus, and look at
America--everybody is dying. You know, it's necessary that we
control the information. And people were angry at first, then
they were happy with the government's control. So it's an ebb
and flow. I think generally people have a kind of discontent
and anger, but it's heavily suppressed.
Senator King. Well, we have a tradition here of free
speech, of the First Amendment, and sort of fierce individual
liberty impulses. Is there something in Chinese history and
culture that makes the Chinese people more likely to tolerate
this kind of central control over their lives? Does this go
back to the Han Dynasty, or--I'm trying to get at a cultural
rationale for this acceptance.
Ms. Wang. I don't think it's cultural. It's entirely
political. You have experienced the Cultural Revolution, the
Great Famine, and millions of people died. You internalized
that message: Do not criticize the government. 1989 happened.
You tried to criticize the government; your body was rolled
over by a tank. That's a message--do not criticize the
government. And I mean, for----
Senator King. So it's garden variety intimidation?
Ms. Wang. Yes. And I think for my generation--I'm 34 years
old--or people younger than me, if you were born into a
situation where you have never experienced freedom, you don't
know how it feels to be free. I mean, I was born in China, and
I`ve lived in the U.S. for over 10 years. I can feel the
difference--if you have not experienced freedom, you don't know
how it feels to be free.
Senator King. Changing the subject a bit, Mr. Hillman,
we've talked a lot about the spread of Chinese technology,
Huawei particularly. Are any of these countries experiencing
buyer's remorse? Is there a realization that they've been had,
that they've given up something substantial? Or are they just
happy they got a better deal?
Mr. Hillman. I think that there definitely are instances of
buyer's remorse. We've seen a little bit of that in Pakistan.
Some politicians have made comments about how--I mean, at one
point, in one ``safe city'' project, about half the cameras
weren't working. And so there are these instances of
disappointment, of promises not being delivered, but it's a
political challenge too, because the incentives are not really
there for the leaders, the decisionmakers, that approved these
systems and probably had a big ceremony around their
announcement, to own up to the fact that they might not be
performing.
Senator King. Well, I'm running out of time. But if we were
talking about future potential customers, is it a matter of
just developing our own good server and equipment and
subsidizing it like they do? Do we have to--I mean, that's
inconsistent with our theory of the market, but do we have to
fight fire with fire? Otherwise, we're just standing by and
watching them wire the world.
Mr. Hillman. Yes. We need to package the parts together. We
need to bring together not only the hard infrastructure but the
services and training, too. Training's really attractive. And
you need financing in some cases to makes this look feasible
upfront and to make it competitive. As we do that, though, it's
not only about providing just a different option, but I do
think we want to be offering a superior option, one that we
have evidence that it works and one that comes with some
safeguards, too, that are going to prevent some of the harm
that we see when these systems are used in the wrong way.
Senator King. Well, of course, part of the problem is some
of these authoritarian regimes want that surveillance capacity
that we may be reluctant to supply them with.
Well, thank you all very much for your testimony. This is a
very important hearing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator King. And we'll
turn to Congressman Suozzi.
Representative Suozzi. I want to--first, this is
terrifying, what's going on. And I want to thank the Chairman
for sounding the alarm on this very important issue. I want to
thank the witnesses for the work they've done, the books
they've written, the articles they've written, the work that
they've done worldwide to try to expose this. I think that the
world is coming to realize that--you know, our view, ever since
Nixon went to China, that the more that China was exposed to us
the more they'd become like us--with democracy and capitalism--
just hasn't happened. And the Uyghur situation is the worst
example of their crimes against humanity, but there are so many
other things--with the Tibetans and Hong Kong.
And now this use of technology is really the terrifying
thing that we face. When I was in seventh grade, I remember
Sister Ruth saying, You know, the world is moving so quickly
these days we haven't had a chance to figure out how this is
affecting us. And, you know, now things are moving at such a
rapid pace, and the world doesn't realize--we don't realize how
technology is affecting us in so many different ways. And I
remember when we were little kids we would watch shows and
they'd say, If only he'd used his genius for good instead of
evil.
There are great things that are happening with technology--
you know, facial recognition and voice recognition and iris
recognition and gait recognition. These could all be very
positive things that could be used. I use CLEAR when I go to
the airport. But this is being manipulated by the Chinese
Communist Party for the domination of people. And we have to
expose to the world what's going on. I was very interested in
Ms. Wang's comment when she said we have to get more Chinese-
speaking journalists to report on this, because we have to
advise people as to what's happening.
You know, it's so scary, this idea that people are changing
their behavior so they don't trigger the artificial
intelligence surveillance monitors; they're trying to stay very
robotic. I mean, that's terrifying. We talked about the effect
of WeChat on the Chinese diaspora, but there are many groups
that use WeChat even beyond the Chinese diaspora. So they're
monitoring that as well. And TikTok is used by everybody. And
they're using that to monitor people's behavior.
I want to figure out what we can do to let the world know
this is happening. I don't know how but we have to sound the
alarm beyond this hearing that this is happening. I think that
one of the things that Ms. Wang talked about was the use of
social media to sow civil unrest here in the United States of
America. I know it's a little bit off topic, but it's so
important that the American people realize that this is not
just happening out there somewhere. This is invading our lives
in WeChat, in TikTok, but also on other American platforms
where the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the Russians and
the Iranians and the North Koreans, are trying to sow civil
unrest in America and elsewhere in the world, using our
freedoms. Can you give us some examples of what you're aware of
regarding that, Ms. Wang, of how the Chinese Communist Party is
trying to sow civil unrest in America?
Ms. Wang. Well, you know, it's hard to tell because it's
hard to do research. And that's one of the recommendations that
was in my written submission, that we need to make those tech
companies more transparent, so people know how they moderate
the content, how they enforce their content moderation. You
know, what kind of data they are collecting this year with the
Chinese government. So there are ways to know it, and it
requires the Congress to pass a law to make it a mandate.
In terms of social unrest, I would give an example of how
WeChat is powerful in political organizing in the U.S. Right
now, affirmative action is being--I think right now it's still
in a Boston court. And this anti-affirmative action is becoming
a movement, and that movement is very much initiated by the
Chinese diaspora, and the organizing of that movement is
primarily on WeChat. I have no evidence whether the Chinese
government is interested or not, but the idea is that a very
important civil rights movement in the United States, the
organizing of this movement is on a platform that is controlled
by the Chinese government, that can be manipulated by the
Chinese government.
This is definitely a cause for concern. I mean, in terms of
other protests, whether the Chinese government is playing a
role, I mean, I live in New York City. There are anti-Asian
racist protests, other different kinds of protests concerning
the Chinese diaspora. Again, it's happening on WeChat, the
organizing's on WeChat. We don't know whether the Chinese
government plays a role or not. And we can know if Congress
makes it happen.
Representative Suozzi. I think it's very important--first
of all, this is happening elsewhere in the world as they're
trying to export their technology through the ``safe cities,''
as you said, and the social scores and everything else. And
they're trying to export the technology so they can have
control of this data and build this massive database of people
throughout the world. But we need to get the American people
more interested in this topic.
Anything that you can do to help us understand--for
example, I know that the Chinese government, the Chinese
Communist Party, was doing a presentation at a Queens museum,
just right outside my district, where they were completely
misrepresenting the history of the Tibetan Buddhists. And the
people in the community, you know, stood up and fought to get
that removed. And we know how they use the Confucius Centers to
spread disinformation. And I know about an example of a New
York City police officer of Tibetan descent who was actually
working with the Chinese Communist Party to surveil Tibetans in
the area he was responsible for patrolling.
So we need to figure out how we can let people know what
the Chinese government is doing--the Chinese Communist Party is
doing--that's actually affecting us here in the United States
now, so we can get them more and more interested in this and
expose how they're trying to export these ideas, utilizing
these--so anything you can just throw out there in the few
minutes or few seconds I have left, I would appreciate.
Anything that you can give us as examples of really abusive
behavior.
Ms. Hoffman.
Ms. Hoffman. Yes. Thank you. I think that this is a
challenging question. It's one that's been incredibly
important. I mean, I think that the biggest issue that we have
here is perhaps one that Ms. Wang highlighted in a previous
response, which is that people tend to think that, Well, I'm
not going to be affected. It's not me. It's hard to
conceptualize something that is quite abstract, actually, for a
lot of people. It's very real and palpable for political
opponents of the CCP, but it's less obvious to you and me, for
instance. And so I think part of it is that we need to have a
very clear public conversation about the implications of data
collection, about what it means when a----
Representative Suozzi. I think my time has expired so I
don't want to keep holding the rest of the people up. I'm
sorry.
Ms. Hoffman. All right. I'm sorry.
Representative Suozzi. Thank you.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Congressman.
We'll now turn to Senator Ossoff from Georgia.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
our panel today.
Ms. Wang, you've covered some of this previously, but could
you please specify with as much detail as possible the specific
tools, technologies, platforms, and their manufactures and
producers, that are used by the CCP to surveil and intimidate
dissidents and other political opponents abroad?
Ms. Wang. I think it goes back to, you know, everybody uses
WeChat, so the government has an easy way to get information on
what you're doing. I chatted with people about me coming to
Washington, D.C., on WeChat, and the government can get
information just by reading my WeChat. Again, it's that heavy
reliance on this tool gives the government a lot of latitude to
do that. This is a tool that affects the diaspora. And then if
you use other websites or any kind of technology developed in
China, the government very much can have access to that
information and use those tools to surveil you, even if you are
in the United States. I don't know if that answers your
question.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. I'd like to ask others on the
panel to share their expertise on the same question, which is
to specify the platforms, technologies, tools, software
providers, techniques commonly used by the CCP for purposes of
surveillance, intimidation, or other forms of influence
projection targeting those outside of Chinese borders. We'll
start with you, please, Mr. Cain.
Mr. Cain. Yes. I actually interviewed a number of former
technology workers from Huawei, SenseTime and Megvii, and also
the company that runs WeChat. One of the things to first bear
in mind is that two laws in China, the National Intelligence
Law and the National Security Law, passed around 2015 and 2017,
I believe, essentially make it a crime to not assist the state
with data that they request. That's not the exact wording, but
that's essentially the spirit and the fundamentals of those
particular laws.
The technology workers who I spoke with, obviously they've
been out of China for a few years; they can't return. But as of
2018-2019, they can say without any doubt whatsoever that these
companies do not need to rely on special cybersecurity lapses
or special ways of hacking into people's phones and stealing
their data. It's simply that if there's data that is passing
through China, and that data is requested by the Ministry of
Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, another body,
the companies will turn it over. And they gave many specific
examples.
You know, among my population that I was with for many
years are the Uyghur population and the Kazakhs and some of the
Tibetans. You know, they provided specific examples of WeChat
in particular simply handing over massive amounts of data from
the years 2010 to very recently, 2017-2018. Just simply every
text message being stored in servers for two years at a time,
and then using AI surveillance technology to attempt to find
matches between data points to try to predict whether someone
might become a terrorist. This AI technology was being deployed
by various Chinese ministries, but WeChat was the one that
voluntarily, when requested, provided this data.
So I haven't found evidence personally yet of a special
backdoor system that's spying on all of us. I think it's simply
the CCP asks, and the companies will follow.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. And continuing with you, Mr.
Cain, please, how is that law enforced with respect to U.S. and
multinational firms that are doing business in China, locating
servers in China, selling products in China?
Mr. Cain. So, just to clarify, you mean, Senator, the ways
that we enforce the law here to prevent that from happening in
China?
Senator Ossoff. No, enforcement of the National Security
and Surveillance Laws by which the Chinese government compels
the disclosure of such information from WeChat for U.S. and
multinational firms who are doing business in China. In what
ways are they subject to such enforcement? What data, perhaps
related to U.S. persons, may be disclosed or be compelled to be
disclosed to the Chinese authorities on the basis of that law?
And, Mr. Cain, if you'd prefer, you can feel free to defer to
anyone else on the panel who may have greater expertise, or
happy to hear from you on that.
Mr. Cain. My understanding of both laws is that they do not
have jurisdiction only within the People's Republic of China.
It is simply that any data that is passing through a server can
be requested by the authorities there. In the past I have used
WeChat. I no longer use WeChat at all because the security
risks have been well documented. But I have called, just
experimentally, to see what happens--I have called people in
Tibet. I have called people in Xinjiang. You know, this was
before the terrors that exist now, when things were a little
better. WeChat would show messages--would show a warning that
says, You know, you are calling this region; your data is
potentially not going to be protected here. There was a little
disclosure for a while. I haven't done that lately because I
don't want to endanger anybody, but that was something that
these software companies I think made clear and admitted--that
this data is not safe.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Cain, and with my remaining
45 seconds, Ms. Hoffman, the Aussie perspective on that
question, please.
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you. Well, in a recent report called
``Mapping China's Technology Giants,'' we highlighted on our
website the privacy policies for a lot of the PRC technology
companies that we mapped in this project. It's 27 companies.
And one thing that we note is that it's common for all
companies, globally, to state in their privacy policies that
your data may be transferred to another country where you
aren't residing, and that when that data is transferred, it
would be governed by local law. Of course, PRC tech companies
say the same. And as Mr. Cain has highlighted, when they're
subject to the State Security Law and the Intelligence Law,
they really don't have a choice. And they aren't even allowed
to admit that they've assisted in state security in those
cases.
You know, I think that the other part of your question, and
one that a couple of other questions throughout the hearing
have highlighted, is that we aren't just talking about the ways
that political opponents of the CCP, that their data can be
collected and used. We're also talking about the way that, say,
U.S. citizens and other citizens around the world can have
their data accessed and used. And of course, we aren't thinking
as much about individuals being surveilled--of course that does
happen--but it's also just about what value data has when it's
aggregated.
An example that I once provided is the idea of Hisense, a
smart TV provider, being a state-owned company--partly or fully
state-owned, I can't remember at the moment. And, you know,
smart TV data doesn't sound extremely interesting until you
think about that data in the aggregate, because what's useful
for advertisers would also be useful from a propaganda
perspective in terms of influence operations in the future. So
it's not just individuals being tracked, it's also the issue of
the strategic value of aggregated datasets.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Hoffman. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chair Merkley. Thanks so much, Senator Ossoff, and now
we're going to turn to Congresswoman Wexton of Virginia.
Representative Wexton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the panelists for joining us here today and for your
important work in this area. You know, I represent a district
here in Northern Virginia which has one of the highest
populations of Uyghur Muslims outside of Xinjiang. And the
stories that they tell me are terrifying, about what their
families are going through back home. And you know, the
surveillance doesn't end in Xinjiang or in China. They will
talk about how they get a random message on WeChat saying: Do
you want to talk to grandma? You know, this is somebody that
they haven't been able to talk to in months. And when they set
up this video call, there will be a Han Chinese member of the
PRC sitting on the sofa with grandma. And it's just that kind
of intimidation and threats that really are very, very
frightening.
Ms. Wang, I want to thank you for all your testimony about
what's happening and everything that you've been dealing with.
This whole issue with WeChat is particularly frightening
because it is so insidious and so ubiquitous for the Chinese
diaspora and because it's not just disaggregated data; they can
focus on a single individual and surveil what they are doing.
So it's pretty frightening. And I want to thank you for
everything that you've done to draw attention to this issue.
But I do want to talk for a minute about the Olympics,
which are coming up around the corner. I'm very concerned about
the PRC's use of surveillance technologies during the Olympics
and what risks the athletes, in particular, will face while in
China. If any of them does choose to speak out about the human
rights abuses that are taking place in China nowadays, what
sort of retaliatory actions can they expect from the PRC and
from the Chinese government? I guess, Mr. Cain, if we could
start with you on that question.
Mr. Cain. It is alarming, I must say, just the fact that
Beijing can hold an Olympics, given the state of human rights
and the downward trend toward authoritarianism in the country.
So when it comes to thinking about ways to raise awareness, or
to boycott, or to do something to make people notice what's
going on in China, I think just more broadly speaking the
Olympics is the moment to do that, because this is going to be
a time when all the world's eyes are going to be on China. In
2008, shortly after the Olympics, there were mass protests in
Tibet and Xinjiang in 2009-2010, owing to conditions there, to
human rights atrocities and a lack of civil liberties. And that
was a moment--I think a rare moment in the past when the
world's eyes were really on just the depth of the suffering
that exists in some of these regions.
I think that naturally there's going to be a lot more
attention on these problems as the Olympics approaches. I'm not
totally sure given all the vested commercial interests, the big
advertising deals, I think there's a feeling among many U.S.
corporations and foreign companies that I've spoken with
personally that we need to not be too loud about China and its
own human rights problems in the interest of preserving our own
market access and our advertising relationship with the
Olympics. I'm not sure quite how to get around that one
particular problem short of continuing to sanction foreign
companies that do business in Xinjiang and with other human
rights-abusing regimes. But I am optimistic in one sense, that
when the Olympics does happen, there will be major broadcast
coverage of the underbelly and some of the human rights
atrocities now unfolding.
Representative Wexton. Thank you. And do you think that
there will be any retaliatory action as a result of that?
Mr. Cain. I think that there already has been a good deal
of retaliatory action. There has been in the past two or three
years a vast clampdown, you know, both on human rights in Hong
Kong and other parts of China, but also retaliation against
foreign journalists who travel to China or who live in China
and who have been reporting on these topics. I mean, among my
own personal media circles I can count now on maybe two hands,
it could even be a few dozen people actually by now, who've
simply been denied visas, or rejected, or who have lost their
visas as retaliation for their reporting.
So without a doubt I do think that there will be threats
from the Chinese Communist Party against major broadcast media
that attempt to cover these human rights atrocities as the
Olympics are underway. But I think that also the PRC has worked
itself into a bit of a hole in this situation because I don't
think they have much more leverage, having already yanked the
visas of so many foreign journalists in the country who already
speak Chinese who do great coverage of the country. Now that
they've been pulled out, they're simply going to be sitting in
South Korea or Japan now, simply covering these atrocities from
the point of view of refugees who have escaped.
Representative Wexton. Thank you so much, Mr. Cain. I don't
think you'll get any argument from anybody on this panel. We've
had a number of hearings about the Olympics and their sponsors
and everything and trying to up the pressure on them in advance
of those Olympics taking place.
Now, Mr. Hillman, it's clear from your presentation that
U.S. firms could compete with firms from the PRC in terms of
providing cutting-edge technology and those services across the
globe. How can we ensure that the technologies that we're
exporting aren't going to be used for surveillance technologies
and to advance authoritarianism? And is the PRC currently using
any U.S. technology in order to conduct its surveillance
activities at home or abroad?
Mr. Hillman. Thanks. It's a challenging question, but I
think one that we can do not only just through unilateral
action but also in coordination with partners and allies.
Developing principles for the use of technology--in a way some
of that's being done now through the Quad, which includes the
U.S., Japan, Australia, and India. I think there are similar
efforts underway through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology
Council. And so not only making alternatives available but
helping to provide technical assistance and training that
ensures that these alternatives are being used appropriately.
And then we obviously have tools and sanctions to use in
instances where they're not being used appropriately.
There, unfortunately, are examples of U.S. technology, U.S.
products being used. And, you know, this is something,
unfortunately, that's not new. I think there's a longer history
here that goes back to the 1990s and the opening of China's
market, and the eagerness with which a lot of U.S. companies
and other foreign firms wanted to go into that market, their
willingness to form joint ventures, to share technology, and
still the willingness of some companies to supply components
that are needed for these systems. So I do think that that's an
area that deserves more attention.
Representative Wexton. Thank you very much. I see that my
time has expired, so I'll yield back.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Wexton. I
appreciate your raising the Olympics. The Congressional-
Executive Commission on China has tried to really amplify
attention to the fact that the International Olympic Committee
has placed the world's athletes in the untenable position of
making them essentially complicit in China's effort to use the
Olympics to paint a very beautiful vision of their country and
to basically hide the genocide that they are engaged in against
the Uyghur community and other ethnic and religious minorities.
So it's important that we continue to raise it, that we
encourage athletes to speak out, that we encourage sponsors to
speak out, we encourage sponsors to condition any future
sponsorship on massive reform by the IOC, that we protect the
athletes' ability to speak freely at the Games, that we
encourage network coverage, cable coverage to explore the
underbelly, as referred to by our witness today, and give us an
opportunity to educate the world about China's practices when
those Olympics occur.
I want to address one additional topic that I don't think
has really been covered today and that is the challenge that
U.S. companies have in operating in China when they are
compelled to hand over information. One particular example
that's been well covered is Airbnb. Sean Joyce, the former
chief trust officer of Airbnb, resigned in 2019 because China
was requiring Airbnb to hand over not just phone numbers and
email addresses, but also messages sent between guests and
hosts. In other words, participate in the surveillance strategy
of the country. Many other companies are compelled to share
information. And it's just an ongoing challenge that needs to
be highlighted.
Ms. Wang, can you bring any kind of a spotlight to bear on
this challenge?
Ms. Wang. Thank you for the question. I do think this is a
huge problem. You mentioned Airbnb, and there are many other
companies. I think one big company is Apple. China is Apple's
second-largest market and lots of people in China use iPhones.
By Chinese law, Apple's data is stored in China. So basically,
what you are communicating through your iPhone inside China is
known to the Chinese government. The database is jointly owned
by Apple and a Chinese government-controlled company.
Besides that, actually, over the years Apple has taken down
over 1,000 VPNs from the Apple Store. I mean, activists are
extremely frustrated. They always tell me, I cannot find a VPN
in the app store to communicate, to access information blocked
by China. I brought that message to Apple. They always tell me
the same message--you know, we have to comply with the local
law. Then I would tell them, But you have a human rights
commitment; that is in your policy. How do you fulfill that
human rights commitment? So there's always this back and forth.
I don't know what the solution is if Apple values its
market in China so much. You know, I really want to see--there
should be more awareness of Apple's complicity in human rights
violations in China, because Apple has a good reputation here
for its support for privacy rights. I think the public needs to
be more aware of those tech companies' behavior outside of the
United States.
Chair Merkley. Thank you. Do any of our other witnesses
wish to comment on this challenge?
Mr. Hillman. If I could, I would just add that I think U.S.
companies are not only facing that pressure within China, but
increasingly in some third markets too, where they're being
asked by foreign governments to provide access to their data.
That pressure is increased in situations where they have a
Chinese competitor who's also operating in that market and does
not hesitate to provide access to that data. So I think it's
not an easy challenge to solve when your competitor is willing
to engage in that race to the bottom. The U.S. does have trade
tools it could use. I think we also need to, again, be working
with partners and allies so that companies that are operating
in our markets--you know, in the United States and the European
Union in particular--are abiding by that higher set of
standards.
Chair Merkley. Thank you very much, and I thank all of our
witnesses--Mr. Cain, Dr. Hoffman, Ms. Wang, Mr. Hillman--for
sharing your expertise with us today and helping us to gain a
better understanding of how to combat techno-authoritarianism.
First, your testimony has portrayed a truly chilling
description of techno-authoritarianism and the surveillance
state, a combination of old strategies of neighbors spying on
neighbors and sanctions for misbehavior combined with new
technological strategies that involve the collection of
information from video monitors, from internet use, cellphone
use, artificial intelligence, processing of information to
target specific individuals. Basically, an all-encompassing
surveillance cage that turns humans into state-monitored and -
controlled robots, stripped of their freedom of movement, their
freedom of expression, as well as their cultural heritage.
Second, that this strategy is spreading throughout the
world, through China's Belt and Road Initiative, including
their safe cities program, their cybersecurity program, and
through the interest of authoritarian governments in having
more control over both targeted groups within their country and
over their general population.
Third, that the speed of technological development and
deployment is outpacing the response of democratic governments
to monitor it, to understand it, to respond to it, and to set
standards for it.
Fourth, that without a lot of effort, scrutiny, and action,
U.S. capital and technology become complicit in supporting and
accelerating this techno-authoritarianism.
Fifth, that China is using this strategy to also collect
information on individuals throughout the world, including the
Chinese diaspora, and that information is used to influence and
control people outside of its borders.
And sixth, that responding to Chinese techno-
authoritarianism is going to require a coalition of free states
and the development of an alternative model of technology; that
is, equipment and practices, and that it is certainly urgent
for us to act.
I hope today's hearing has helped draw attention to this
urgency and to the importance of the United States and other
free nations engaging with international organizations that set
international norms and standards, such as the International
Telecommunication Union. That we be very aware of and respond
to the challenge of protecting data. That we recognize the need
to increase our Chinese skills, including our Chinese-language
journalism, and that we help provide open-source responses to
Chinese applications like WeChat. So that's a significant,
challenging, and exceedingly important agenda. And I appreciate
all of you for shedding light on it today. We must pay
attention and we must act.
The record will remain open until the close of business on
Friday, November 19th for any members who would like to submit
any information for the record or additional questions for our
witnesses. Thank you all so much. And with that, this hearing
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statements
------
Prepared Statement of Geoffrey Cain
Chairman Merkley, Co-Chairman McGovern and members of the
Commission, it is an honor to be invited to testify here on China's
surveillance apparatus and the threat it poses globally.
Democracies around the world are straddled with a grave and
unprecedented problem: the creation of new, totalitarian surveillance
technologies, developed faster than we can implement the democratic
laws, norms, and checks and balances that will ensure these
technologies do not fall into the wrong hands.
Today I will talk about a place where these surveillance
technologies have enabled genocide and crimes against humanity. I will
talk about the situation of the Uyghur population in China's western
region of Xinjiang, where about 1.8 million people have languished in a
network of hundreds of extrajudicial concentration camps, out of an
ethnic minority population of about 11 million people. Since 2016, the
People's Republic of China has engaged in an unprecedented experiment
in social control in Xinjiang. It has deployed novel technologies in
artificial intelligence, facial recognition, voice recognition and
biometric data collection to oppress its people in new ways.
In the twentieth century, genocides took place in gas chambers and
mass graves. But in the twenty-first century, modern technology has
allowed the People's Republic of China to commit the beginnings of
genocide, wiping out a people in silence, through cultural erasure and
forced sterilizations, without the use of mass physical violence and
killings.
This is all documented in my book The Perfect Police State: An
Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the
Future, published in June 2020 by the Hachette Book Group. From August
2017 to February 2021, I was an investigative journalist in China,
Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, where I interviewed 168 Uyghur and Kazakh
refugees. These refugees consisted of former concentration camp
detainees, their family members, American and European diplomats
tracking the atrocities, Chinese government officials, academics,
former Uyghur technology employees at major Chinese corporations, and
former Uyghur intelligence operatives from the Ministry of State
Security, an intelligence body.
In December 2017, I made my final visit to Kashgar, the Uyghur
heartland, and Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang. Within three
days, I was detained and asked to leave. To protect my data, my
sources, and my own safety, I have not returned.
technology, torture and genocide
In interviews, Uyghur and Kazakh refugees all told similar stories
about the region's descent into a total surveillance dystopia. First
and most commonly, they recounted how authorities from the Ministry of
Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, and Chinese technology
firms such as Huawei, Hikvision, SenseTime, Megvii and others have
innovated the technologies that are deployed for a dragnet. The police
used these technologies for what interviewees say is a system of
psychological torture.
When refugees and former camp detainees say ``psychological
torture,'' they meant the feeling of constantly being watched, not by
humans, but by crude software systems designed to predict future crimes
and acts of terrorism, with great inaccuracy. The software platform,
known as the IJOP, or the Integrated Joint Operations Platform,
gathered data from a myriad of sources, including police input, camera
surveillance, and criminal and court histories. It was straight out of
the science fiction movie Minority Report, about a police unit that
arrests and brainwashes people believed to be future criminals before
they have even committed a crime.
Former Uyghur technology workers, from major Chinese companies,
told me about how the system worked from the inside. They said that the
artificial intelligence used data to train a crude, simple algorithm
and find correlations between data points, and then determined who was
likely to commit a crime based on a number of unrelated, outside
factors. The system sent a ``bump'' or ``nudge'' to the smart phones of
local police to investigate or detain an individual, for reasons often
unclear to the human users of the software. These reasons for detention
could be as far-flung as whether or not a resident began a physical
exercise routine suddenly, entered their home through the front or the
back door, or had the flu and was late for work one day.
Under constant surveillance, sometimes without a human to oversee
these decisions, refugees said they were terrified at the prospect of
doing anything that diverged from their daily schedules and flagged
them as potential criminals. They trained themselves to become like
machines or robots, able to answer every police question in a pre-
programmed way, repressing their own feelings, thoughts and desires.
At concentration camps, where psychological and physical torture
have been well-documented, refugees described fellow detainees as
lacking personality and expression, like people who had a memory wipe.
Their only way of surviving was to do what the camp guards and teachers
said, without question. The surveillance technology was designed to
force them to deny their own reality and internalize the thinking of
the Chinese Communist Party. By internalizing CCP propaganda, these
detainees did exactly what the CCP wanted from them: detainees erased
their own internal sense of culture, heritage, community, and
upbringing which separated them from the dominant Han Chinese
population.
key sources
Looking beyond data alone, the personal stories of Uyghur and
Kazakh refugees are harrowing and have much to warn us about the misuse
of surveillance technologies.
To protect their safety, I granted anonymity to two key
interviewees who appeared in my book. They are ``Maysem,'' a young
woman now in her thirties from Kashgar, who obtained a master's degree
in the social sciences from a university in Ankara. She remains in
Ankara as a refugee after being taken to a lower-level ``reeducation
center,'' followed by a high-security ``detention center,'' in late
2016 for about one week.
Maysem asked for anonymity and for the author to obscure some
details of her story because she believes her entire family has been
taken to a camp as of late 2017 or early 2018, and remain vulnerable.
The other key anonymous source was ``Irfan,'' who now resides in
Turkey and had obtained a mid-senior management position as an
information technology (IT) worker at a major Chinese
telecommunications firm in Urumqi, his hometown. Irfan asked for
anonymity because he was revealing what the PRC would probably consider
state secrets, surely leading to the imprisonment of his family in
Xinjiang, and his own imprisonment and perhaps even execution should he
ever be required to return to China.
Under contract with the Ministry of Public Security, Irfan led
teams of IT workers and engineers who, from the late 2000s and early
2010s, began establishing networks of surveillance cameras all over
Urumqi. Irfan witnessed the escalating surveillance by the Ministry of
Public Security firsthand. This included the rollout of dragnet
artificial intelligence (AI), facial recognition and voice recognition
systems, and digital surveillance camera technology from 2010 to 2015
until his departure from the telecommunications company in 2015.
Irfan also detailed the connivance, complacency and involvement of
major Chinese telecommunications firms in creating the surveillance
apparatus in Xinjiang. All the firms he detailed have been sanctioned
by the U.S. Department of Commerce, a government body that, under both
the Biden and Trump administrations, has similarly accused these firms
of involvement in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
I did not grant anonymity to interviewees who had already become
public figures and whose stories were available in the public domain,
search engines and media websites. One key public interviewee was
Yusupjan Ahmet, who came from Karamay, Xinjiang and who had migrated to
Turkey as an intelligence operative for the PRC Ministry of State
Security.
Yusupjan detailed his life story in a series of hours-long,
recorded interviews with the author. He stated that he intended to
travel to Afghanistan in the early 2010s to become a jihadist fighter,
that he was instead imprisoned, and that the state coerced him into
spying on fellow Uyghurs by torturing and threatening his mother.
In 2017, with the help of a former military officer in Pakistan,
Yusupjan was flown to Afghanistan where he joined a local Taliban
militia, while posing as a jihadist. The Ministry of State Security
ordered him to report back on the activities and whereabouts of Chinese
citizens, mainly Uyghurs, who had become jihadi combatants in
Afghanistan. In 2017, the Ministry of State Security relocated Yusupjan
to Turkey, where he was ordered to gather intelligence on the local
Uyghur community in Istanbul, Turkey. In particular, PRC intelligence
operatives wanted him to infiltrate local Uyghur-owned businesses
posing as a young person seeking employment.
PRC intelligence officers told Yusupjan that the Turkestan Islamic
Party (TIP), a fundamentalist terror group, had infiltrated the Uyghur
community in Turkey, and that his objective was to locate and document
these supposedly widespread underground networks. Yusupjan, however,
was disillusioned to find no evidence of widespread infiltration. He
found the PRC's claims to be little more than a conspiracy theory
designed to justify the mass detention of his fellow Uyghurs back in
China.
In 2018, Yusupjan defected from the Ministry of State Security and
went into hiding. He relocated to Zonguldak, a small industrial town in
northern Turkey on the coast of the Black Sea. There, he kept a low
profile, working as a gas station attendant. Two other Uyghur residents
in Zonguldak told the author that while they heard, through local
community talk, that Yusupjan was a resident, they knew little about
him and his life story. He kept a low profile.
In November 2020, while visiting a friend in Istanbul, Yusupjan was
preparing to offer an interview to the BBC. As he left his friend's
apartment, a man wielding a gun, reportedly of Azeri (Azerbaijan)
background, appeared on the street and shot him twice in the back of
the shoulder. Yusupjan survived, but has been hospitalized, close to
paralyzed and unable to walk for months.
exporting the surveillance state
The technologies are no longer unique to Xinjiang. Chinese
companies have made them available for export around the world, posing
threats to democracy and rule of law. Mexico, Brazil, Serbia,
Singapore, Turkey, Spain and South Africa are all examples of countries
that have embraced ``Safe Cities'' programs, designed by Huawei for
surveillance and crime prevention.
While there is nothing wrong with adopting technologies that can
stop crime, one legitimate fear is that authoritarian or quasi-
authoritarian governments will exploit these systems to seize more
power and monitor their political opponents. One study by the Brookings
Institution concluded, ``countries that are strategically important to
the PRC are comparatively more likely to adopt it, but so are countries
with high crime rates.''
I will give some examples. The authoritarian government of
Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country between China and Russia, announced
at a security meeting in May 2019 that it signed with Huawei to develop
a Safe Cities system with 883 cameras in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent,
to, in Orwellian terms, ``digitally manage political affairs.'' In non-
democratic Uganda in sub-Saharan Africa, The Wall Street Journal
reported in August 2019 that Huawei technicians helped the government
access the Facebook pages and phones of opposition bloggers who
criticized the president. Huawei denied the allegation.
denialism of crimes against humanity
It is a tragedy that some individuals, companies and governments
have chosen to downplay or deny evidence of mass atrocities in the
Xinjiang region, sometimes for their own market access to the PRC.
Their denials are in line with CCP propaganda.
My research underwent a three-month, rigorous fact-checking
process, looking for inconsistencies, omissions and inaccuracies. With
a professional fact-checker and a journalist, we compared our own
refugee testimonies with the published reports of other refugees,
academics and journalists, including research by all the scholars
testifying here today. We checked the locations and structures of
concentration camps and other locations on Google Maps satellite
imagery, in technology company press releases and official reports, and
in investigative journalism already published in other periodicals such
as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BuzzFeed. We also
double-checked Chinese-language media.
how to take action
Because of the situation before us, I urge Congress to take action
on these points. The following are a sample of possible actions, and
are not exhaustive:
Pass the CHIPS for America Act (H.R. 7178), introduced in
the House in 2020. The Act will invest in and incentivize research and
development and supply chain security in America's semiconductor
industry. Establishing a strong semiconductor supply chain at home, in
America, will be key to stopping malign state actors from undermining
our democracy through technology.
Pass legislation that would require the U.S. Department
of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to publish reports on
a regular basis for Congress and the public, providing evidence for
sanctions of foreign businesses. While BIS already releases reports on
sanctions, sometimes they do not offer much detail as to why specific
entities have been added to the sanctions list. In October 2021, BIS
began amending export controls to cover items used in surveillance and
espionage that disrupts networks, a great step in the right direction.
Pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (H.R. 1155).
A similar bill was passed in the Senate in July 2021, and H.R. 1155 has
been introduced in the House but has not proceeded. The bill would
pressure the PRC to curtail the Xinjiang surveillance dystopia, by
blocking goods made with forced labor in Xinjiang, such as clothes and
electronic components, from entering the U.S. market.
______
Prepared Statement of Samantha Hoffman
China's Tech-Enhanced Authoritarianism
Core Assessments
1. Assumptions that liberal democracy would automatically be
strengthened and authoritarians weakened as the world became
increasingly digitally interconnected have been proven false.
Democracies are not going to self-correct in response to the problems
created by authoritarian applications of technology. Competing with
China in this space is not about ``winning'' or ``losing'' a race in
terms of R&D of emerging and critical technologies, such as AI or data
science and storage technologies. Leadership in these R&D areas is
essential, not least to guarantee supply chain resilience, but just as
consequential is the competition taking place in the conceptual space.
To stay ahead, the United States and like-minded countries must
innovate thinking about use-cases, and set boundaries, so that these
technologies positively affect society without liberal democratic
values being undermined.
2. The ability to identify and protect strategic data will become
an increasingly complex and vital national security task, especially
under the conditions of China's military-civil fusion strategy. Knowing
how particular datasets are collected and used by foreign adversaries,
and imagining potential use cases, will be an essential part of ranking
what datasets should be prioritized for protection. Developing
effective countermeasures requires understanding the implications of
the fact that the Chinese party-state conceives of the usefulness of
data in a strategic competition in ways that go beyond traditional
intelligence collection.
3. We cannot measure risk based on today's capabilities alone.
Technology evolves on a trajectory, and to develop effective policy
responses requires assuming that the challenges China faces today in
realizing its optimal outcomes may not be significant in the future as
concepts increasingly become capabilities.
What Is Tech-Enhanced Authoritarianism?
When we talk about ``authoritarian technology'', this should be
defined as the uses of technology that enhance authoritarian power. The
phrase ``tech-enhanced authoritarianism'' is a way of thinking about
this concept that demystifies the phrase ``techno-authoritarianism''.
Techno-authoritarianism connotes a vision of the future that, for most
passive observers, is either like Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's
1984. The reality though is not like science fiction.
On one hand, we see the Chinese party-state deploying extremely
coercive applications of technology, most notably in places like
Xinjiang and Tibet and with public security surveillance projects like
the ``Sharp Eyes'' or ``Skynet''.\1\ But, elsewhere, it is technologies
that provide services or enhance convenience and problem solving that
allow the party-state to expand and reinforce its power. For example,
data from IoT sensors can improve logistics and predictive analytics
that increase supply chain visibility and efficiency in normal times,
but in crisis those same technologies could facilitate defense
mobilization capacity.
China's tech-enhanced authoritarianism is unique in a national
context. When these technologies are exported globally, it is not
necessarily the intent of an end user to use them in ways that enhance
authoritarian power. Some fragile democracies or illiberal regimes
import the technologies for coercive purposes, but others are genuinely
seeking the best and most affordable technologies for problem-solving.
With many technologies associated with tech authoritarianism appearing
benign in their everyday end-use, problematic assumptions are made that
undermine the risks they embed. For instance, one problematic claim
that is made goes as follows: ``[x] technology or [y] system is not
inherently problematic, it is applied in ways that solve ordinary
governance problems, but there is a potential that in the wrong hands
that it will be misused.'' Following the same problematic logic, some
claim that if that technology is exported, ``we can control the problem
because we control its end-use''. The problem is analysts describing
``misuse'' are thinking subjectively.
For the Party-state, problem-solving technologies can also enhance
authoritarian control, the two are not mutually exclusive. The tendency
to compartmentalise ``good'' and ``bad'' use points to a failure to
conceptualise the strategic potential value of the technologies. The
Chinese Party-state sets itself apart because it is setting itself up
to be able to exploit that inherent dual-use at all times. This is
notable in terms of how it applies PRC law to Chinese companies and in
terms of how it seeks to seize advantages in the development of
technical standards.
Data Security and Digital Supply Chain Security
Technologies that collect, store and transfer data facilitate the
delivery of wide range of services on which society is becoming
increasingly dependent. In a June 2021 report, ``Mapping China's
Technology Giants: Supply chains and the global data collection
ecosystem,'' \2\ we found that existing global policy debates and
subsequent policy responses concerning security in the digital supply
chain miss the bigger picture because they typically prioritize the
potential for disruption or malicious alterations of the supply chain.
Yet, digital supply-chain risk starts at the design level. Not all
methods used to acquire data need to be intrusive, subversive, covert
or even illegal--they can be part of normal business data exchanges.
Figure 1 illustrates how a digital supply chain can be compromised
without a malicious intrusion or alteration. The data-sharing
relationships that bring commercial advantages are also the same ones
that could compromise an organization.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
My October 2019 ASPI report, Engineering Global Consent, provided a
case study describing what this problem can look like in reality. The
report identified and described a machine-translation company
controlled by the Central Propaganda Department, Global Tone
Communications Technology (GTCOM), which engages in global bulk data
collection.\3\
GTCOM claims that one of its many platforms, InsiderSoft,
accumulates about 2-3 petabytes of data per year, including from
Twitter and Facebook.\4\ The company feeds the data it aggregates into
various tools, some linked to state security. For instance, in 2017,
GTCOM's Big Data Director, Liang Haoyu said: Through the real-time
listening and interpretation of cross-language data, the company has
established information security systems for countries and regions, and
ultimately finds relevant security risks in targeted areas through open
channels . . . [Only with] image recognition on top of text and voices,
can [we] better prevent security risks.\5\
There are strong indications that GTCOM generates military and
other state security intelligence out of the data it collects (and not
only because an image from GTCOM Big Data Director Liang Haoyu's
aforementioned speech shows a screen claiming `90% of military-grade
intelligence data can be obtained from open data analysis'). GTCOM runs
the 2020 Cognitive Research Institute (the 2020 Institute), which is a
mechanism through which the company does R&D to enhance `machine
learning, deep neural networks, natural language processing, speech
recognition, AI chips, data mining, distributed computing'. The 2020
Institute has numerous NLP (natural language processing) algorithms,
including for automatic text identification, sentiment analysis, event
element extraction, sensitivity determination (whether text contains
`violent, reactionary, pornographic or other sensitive information'),
relation extraction, and `military text classification'. The `military
text classification' algorithm classifies text according to subfields
such as nuclear, shipping, aviation, electronic and space.
Data and the information it helps generate can also support the
party-state's development of tools for shaping public discourse.
Separately from GTCOM, research funded by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China, the National Key R&D Program of China and a key
project of the `National Society Science Foundation of China' has
worked specifically on automatic news comment generation; that is,
synthetic comments on news articles. The methodology is based on NLP
and large-scale datasets of real comments in Chinese and English. Given
GTCOM's Propaganda Department ownership, its state security role and
the fact that it collects bulk data in 65 languages, the research
indicates a potential tool that a state-controlled company such as
GTCOM could use, especially given that the research was funded with
national-level grants. It's also simply indicative of how GTCOM's bulk
data may be used by others who have access to it, such as researchers
working in cooperation with GTCOM's 2020 Institute. Other R&D
associated with GTCOM may also have security implications, even if it's
not immediately obvious. For instance, among GTCOM's patent
applications is a machine translation method based on generative
adversarial networks (GANs). GAN can be used to synthesise images based
on AI or use visual speech recognition to perform lip-reading and
speech output (it's the same type of technology commonly associated
with synthetic media, meaning `fake news' and `deep fakes'). It's an
intriguing patent not because of the technology itself, but because
GTCOM is controlled by the Propaganda Department. The department's
intent isn't simply to use GTCOM to provide language services, but to
shape global public discourse.
Future Trajectory
Sometimes that control might just be about improved information
integration and sharing. Integrated Joint Operations Platform is
designed to help with the integration and sharing of data on citizens
across multiple government agencies.\6\ One metric used to identify
threats is energy usage from smart electricity meters: abnormally high
energy use could indicate `illegal' activity, but such meters in their
normal use would also improve the accuracy of meter readings. Another
example is building datasets for use in the PRC's `national defence
mobilisation system' (a crisis response platform) using data sourced
from a variety of government cloud networks, from smart cities to
tourism-related cloud networks (Figure 2).
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
This is partly tied to administrative efficiency objectives set
over two decades ago, before current technical capabilities existed. I
noted in a 2018 article for China Brief \7\ that in his report to the
15th Party Congress in 1997, then-CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin
noted that a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy hampers economic
development, and the Party's ability to manage both itself and its
relationship with society. His prescription was the establishment of a
``highly efficient, well-coordinated and standardized administrative
system.'' \8\ Streamlining administration does more than improve the
government's capacity to provide advertised administrative services, it
improves the Party-state's overall visibility and, if effective,
ability to predict and respond to problems (both ``normal'' governance
problems and authoritarian control).
Current public conversation on China's capabilities among China
analysts can often, misleadingly, focus on PRC discussion on its
challenges with the integration and processing of data. Hundreds of
companies' products are involved in smart cities projects across the
PRC, making the implementation appear chaotic and uneven.
Standardization is taking place at the design level, however, which
indicates that seamless interoperability between smart cities systems
is possible to achieve. While these capabilities are not currently at
an optimal state, the trajectory appears to be in the Party-state's
favor and levels of standardization across database schema for tools
like Facial Recognition Systems improve. There is a constant evolution
with digital technology. We must imagine technology's trajectory and
future use cases to adequately develop policies governing their use.
For now, the critical domains of influence are in possessing
infrastructure, the storage, processing capacity and the data contained
within it. If they invest the time and cost into doing so, the actor
that controls those means can later control much more in terms of how
technologies or the data derived from and passing through them are
used.
In a report earlier this year for the National Endowment for
Democracy, I highlighted how domestically, technologies are being
researched and developed to meet the needs of the CCP, which are
typically set out in government standards documents.\9\ Government and
research institutes collaborate with companies on national standards
technical committees to standardize equipment development and the
requirements that companies must meet to successfully bid for a
project. For instance, a 2015 document GA/T1334 on the technical
requirements for facial recognition in security systems was drafted
through the cooperation of over a dozen bodies, including research
institutes, such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National
University of Defense Technology, and the First Research Institute of
the Ministry of Public Security; technology companies, such as
Hikvision and Dahua; and public security bureaus, such as the Shanxi
Provincial Public Security Department and the Wuhan Public Security
Bureau. Documents like these are used as a basis for technical
requirements in government procurement contracts.
In practice, local governments across the PRC have not yet achieved
seamless interoperability between government departments and with other
local governments using smart cities platforms, but this does not mean
that it will remain out of reach. The setting of standards, and the
requirement that project bidders meet those standards, makes it more
likely that plans such as Skynet or Sharp Eyes will gain cohesion and
be successfully implemented, despite the many players involved. The
same logic applies at the international level. Although the PRC cannot
force its standards on other countries, it can help to set standards
that become the global norm and ease the international adoption of its
technology, effectively embedding the CCP's political values and
increasing the regime's ability to exploit this advantage and project
sharp power.
Recommendations for U.S. Policy
Recalibrate data security policy and privacy frameworks to account
for the Chinese state's use of data to reinforce its political
monopoly. Companies and governments too often assume that other
governments' data and privacy regulations share the same goals as their
own. That isn't true when it comes to the Chinese party-state and PRC-
based companies, even if common vocabularies are used or if some policy
drivers are similar. In the PRC, unlike in liberal democracies, data
security and privacy concepts (including draft legislation) reinforce
the party-state's monopoly power. Companies and governments need to
recognize this risk and calibrate their policies to account for it.
Collaborate with like-minded countries to develop systems for
improving risk-based approaches to improving the regulation of data
transfers. Organizations must assess the value of their data, as well
as the value of that data to any potential party in their supply chain
that may have access to it or that might be granted access. In an age
in which information warfare and disinformation campaigns occur across
social media platforms and are among the greatest threats to social
cohesion, data that's about public sentiment is as strategically
valuable as data about more traditional military targets. Risk needs to
be understood in a way that keeps up with the current threat landscape,
in which otherwise innocuous data can be aggregated to carry meaning
that can undermine a society or individuals.
Take a multidisciplinary approach to due diligence. Governments,
businesses and other organizations need to develop frameworks for
conducting supply-chain reviews that take into account country-specific
policy drivers. Developing such a framework shouldn't be limited to
just assessing a vendor's risk of exposure to political risk. It should
also include detailed analysis of the downstream actors who have access
to the vendor's data (and must include analysis of things such as the
broader data ecosystem they're a part of and the obligations those
vendors have to their own governments). Taking this more holistic
approach to due diligence will better ensure that data can be protected
in an effective way.
[Endnotes appear on the following page.]
Endnotes:
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
Prepared Statement of Yaqui Wang
Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, distinguished members of the
Commission, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issue dear
to my heart. I owe my presence here today to the relative internet
freedom China once had, and to the respect for freedom of information
in the United States.
I was born and grew up in China. As a teenager, every day I would
go online and listen to Voice of America's ``Special English,'' a news
program broadcast in slow-speed English. That's how I started to learn
English, and that's also how I and many others in China got information
uncensored by the Chinese government.
That was 15 years ago, and Beijing has since gotten so much better
at controlling the internet. It's not only that many foreign websites
have been blocked, but also that some people from China who now live in
the U.S.--with free internet readily accessible--still go back to the
censored Chinese internet to get their news.
I'd like to use my five minutes to focus on WeChat and TikTok, two
Chinese apps that have a significant presence in the U.S.
First and foremost, it is essential to remember that all Chinese
companies are subject to the control of the ruling Chinese Communist
Party (CCP).
The Chinese diaspora heavily relies on the super-app WeChat for
information, communication, and even political organizing. This allows
Beijing to shape the Chinese diaspora's views in ways more amenable to
the CCP. It allows Beijing to know a lot about the people who have left
China, down to things like who is meeting whom, at what time, and
where. And it also allows Beijing to surveil and potentially influence
and mobilize an important demographic in the U.S.
Earlier this year, a network of fake social media accounts linked
to the Chinese government attempted, but failed, to draw Americans out
to real-world protests against racial injustice. The reason we know
about the scheme is because it happened on Facebook, YouTube, and
Twitter--American companies that periodically disclose influence
operations, including by government and government-aligned actors. We
don't know whether similar manipulations are also happening on WeChat
because it's difficult to do research.
Then there is TikTok, which has far deeper reach into the lives of
the American public, especially young people. One thing lawmakers need
to understand is that the company's algorithm largely decides what
users see. There is no way for outsiders to know what information is
being suppressed or promoted on TikTok because of government influence.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's analysis of the hashtag
#Xinjiang showed a depiction of the region that glosses over the human
rights suffering and instead provides a version that is filled with
smiling and dancing Uyghurs.
In short, there is a lot we don't know about what Chinese tech
companies are doing in the U.S.--what is being censored, promoted, and
suppressed, and how data is being harvested, accessed, used, and
shared. There are risks that these companies can be or are being used
by the Chinese government to undermine the rights of American users.
Congress has recently increased its scrutiny of American tech
companies. Chinese tech companies' rising popularity in the U.S. and
their ties to the Chinese government should give added urgency to
efforts to pass laws to require tech companies--regardless of where
they are headquartered--to protect user data and to be more transparent
in how they moderate content.
Lastly, here I speak not as an expert, but as a member of the
Chinese immigrant community in America: to counter harm from Chinese
tech companies and improve independent, professional Chinese-language
media, the U.S. Government should invest in journalism training and
similar programs for aspiring Chinese-language journalists. Making
fact-based information available in our native language is one of the
most effective ways to counter Beijing's malign influence.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Recommendations for the U.S. Government
1. Enact comprehensive data protection laws that require all tech
companies to practice data minimization for all users; conduct human
rights impact assessments that address all aspects of companies'
operations, including their underlying business model; and require
human rights due diligence for their operations globally.
2. Consider regulations that encourage transparency from all social
media platforms, including disclosure of their content moderation
policies and enforcement, such as what content they've censored or
suppressed because of their own policies or at the request of
governments.
3. Improve independent, professional Chinese-language journalism by
investing in journalism training and similar programs, expanding the
space for Chinese-language speakers to learn about and discuss human
rights issues inside China and around the world.
4. Invest in open-source technologies that provide other channels
of communication and enable people in China to more easily circumvent
censorship.
WeChat Censorship and Surveillance Affecting the Chinese Diaspora
International WeChat users are estimated at between 100 million and
200 million; there are an average of 19 million daily active users in
the United States.
Over the past couple of years, I've interviewed members of the
Chinese diaspora around the world on the Chinese government's
activities undermining human rights abroad. A recurring problem I've
run into is that some of my sources only wanted to use WeChat to
communicate, mainly because they had not installed any other messaging
apps.
The centrality of WeChat in information acquisition and
communication among the Chinese diaspora, especially first-generation
immigrants from China, should be a source of real concern.
Chinese law requires internet companies to store internet logs and
relevant data for at least six months to assist law enforcement.
WeChat's own privacy policy notes that it may need to ``retain,
disclose and use'' user information in response to requests from the
government. Hence, the Chinese government can--if it wants--know a lot
about the people who have left China, down to things like who is
meeting whom, at what time, and where. And because WeChat is a payment
app as well, it can see to whom they send money or from whom they get
it or even who pays for dinner.
WeChat is also where many members of the Chinese diaspora obtain
information, including about the countries they immigrated to. A survey
of Mandarin speakers in Australia found that 60 percent of those polled
identified WeChat as their primary source of news and information,
while only 23 percent said they regularly accessed news from mainstream
Australian media, such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and
the Sydney Morning Herald.
Some of the most popular publications catering to the diaspora
originated on WeChat. In order to attract readership, traditional
Chinese-language media outlets now also publish through WeChat. In this
sense, news produced by a local Chinese-language outlet in New York
goes through censors in Beijing before it reaches the Chinese-speaking
community in New York.
Because of the importance of WeChat among the Chinese diaspora,
some political parties and politicians in countries such as Australia,
Canada, and the U.S. have opened their own WeChat accounts or regularly
utilize popular accounts to reach out to their Chinese speaking
constituencies.
And there is evidence that the Chinese government, through
censorship on WeChat, has interfered with communications between
elected officials and constituents in Western democracies.
In September 2017, Jenny Kwan, a member of the Canadian parliament,
made a statement regarding the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in which
she praised the young protesters who ``stood up and fought for what
they believe in, and for the betterment of their society.''
The statement and anything related quickly disappeared.
After it was taken down, Kwan told me in an email, ``We posted the
statement on Sept 6, 2017. One hundred people viewed it, 1 like and 3
comments were posted before it was deleted by the WeChat management. We
only noticed that it was taken down since you asked the question.''
In this case, the Chinese government quietly and effortlessly
prevented an elected official in a democracy from being heard by her
own constituents. Imagine the consequences if the Chinese government
decided to disrupt these conversations on a broader scale.
Censorship on TikTok
TikTok has repeatedly stated that the Chinese government has not
asked it to remove any content, and that if it does, the company will
not comply. But such reassurances have not found broader acceptance.
For example, there are few videos on TikTok concerning the Hong
Kong protests--even though the largely youth-led movement has garnered
massive international attention. After American teenager Feroza Aziz
posted a video condemning the Chinese government's mass detention of
Uyghur Muslims that went viral, her account was suspended. TikTok
asserted the suspension was the result of an earlier satirical video of
hers referencing Osama Bin Laden being mistakenly flagged for violating
the app's anti-terrorism policy.
In 2020, my colleague and I tried to test some of these concerns.
We started by uploading clips of Tank Man, the young man who famously
stood his ground in front of a procession of Chinese army tanks during
the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.
One clip, uploaded to an account registered in Australia, was
visible to the account holder but not to anyone else. When we raised
the issue with TikTok, representatives of the company said via email
that the video was ``incorrectly partially restricted based on
guidelines related to displaying identifiable military information.''
Our video was later reinstated.
After I published an article mentioning the incident, including
TikTok's response, Tik Tok's representative emailed me, calling my
reporting ``misleading'' and demanding retraction. Because we
considered our report to be fair and accurate, we declined to do so.
Yet, I was taken aback by the incident and thought about how I would
have acted differently if I were an independent researcher without the
support of an institution--it's possible I would have given in to this
pressure.
______
Prepared Statement of Jonathan E. Hillman
Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, and distinguished Members of
the Commission, thank you for holding this important hearing and asking
me to participate.
This testimony draws from my book, The Digital Silk Road: China's
Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future, and related research at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I direct the
Reconnecting Asia Project.\1\
The bottom line is that China is gaining globally through its
Digital Silk Road and positioning itself to reap commercial and
strategic rewards, but its dominance is far from assured. The United
States has several advantages, including world-leading research
universities, innovative companies, deep pools of private capital,
openness to immigrants, and a global network of partners and allies.
The question is whether the United States can rise to the challenge and
lead a coalition that offers real benefits to the developing world. In
much of the world, cost trumps security. Competing will require
expanding the availability of affordable alternatives.
If uncontested, China's Digital Silk Road will undermine U.S.
economic and strategic interests. Developing economies will rise in the
coming decades, as underscored by demographic trends, and offer vast
opportunities for growth.\2\ For example, Nigeria, the world's twenty-
eighth largest economy in 2017, is projected to become the world's
ninth largest economy by 2100. During the same period, India will move
from seventh to third place. These projections provide a glimpse of an
emerging world that the United States can engage with, and benefit U.S.
workers and companies, or allow China to cement a position of strength.
China also stands to gain intelligence and coercive powers if it
achieves its global network ambitions. It could have eyes and ears not
merely walking around foreign capitals but woven into foreign
government buildings, public security command posts, and data centers.
It could learn about scientific breakthroughs as they are made,
corporate mergers and acquisitions as they are contemplated, and
patents before they are filed. On ``the worst possible day,'' Beijing
could disrupt, disable, or destroy its adversaries' communications,
financial markets, and military systems.\3\
These risks must be taken seriously because the warning signs are
already here. For five years, servers at the African Union headquarters
sent data to Beijing covertly in the dead of night. Cameras watching
over Pakistani streets came equipped with hidden hardware while others
malfunctioned. A Chinese subsea cable that stretches from Africa to
South America added little but debt to Cameroon's economy. Laos's first
satellite is actually majority-owned by Beijing. These are the signs of
digital dependency.
The testimony that follows describes how we got here, provides a
tour of the battlefield, and outlines what the United States needs to
do. First, it explains how U.S. mistakes paved the way for China's
telecommunications giants. Second, it provides an overview of the
global digital infrastructure competition in four areas: wireless
networks, smart cities, internet backbone, and satellites. Third, it
explains why a coalition is necessary to compete, identifies partners,
and notes areas of friction that must be managed. Finally, it
summarizes recommendations for U.S. policy.
I. Learning from Past Mistakes
The Digital Silk Road sits at the intersection of Chinese leader Xi
Jinping's signature policy efforts. It is the technology dimension of
China's Belt and Road Initiative, Xi's vision for moving China closer
to the center of everything through infrastructure projects, trade
deals, people-to-people ties, and policy coordination. By helping
Chinese tech companies expand into foreign markets, it also advances
``Made in China 2025,'' which aims to capture dominant market shares in
high-tech industries.
The Digital Silk Road was first mentioned in 2015, as the
``Information Silk Road,'' but its roots run much further back. During
the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese leaders fashioned industrial policies and
negotiated deals with foreign companies that helped Chinese
telecommunications firms dramatically improve their capabilities.
Through the Digital Silk Road, China aims to further reduce its
dependency on foreign companies while making more of the world
dependent on Chinese technology.
Conventional narratives usually overlook or oversimplify this
longer history. The story often told in Washington is that Huawei and
other Chinese firms essentially lied, cheated, and stole their way to
success. To be sure, there was plenty of unfair and illegal behavior,
from receiving massive state support to blatantly copying competitors'
products. But this oversimplified narrative is dangerously self-
serving. It avoids taking responsibility, misses mistakes, and offers
little insight for competing more effectively. An honest assessment
leads to three hard truths:
1. U.S. leaders overhyped the benefits of connectivity. Triumphant
in the aftermath of the Cold War, U.S. commentators predicted that the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was digging its own grave by adopting
satellite TV, the internet, and other communications systems at home.
But CCP leaders set out to modify and wield these tools for their own
purposes. Today, commentators warn that China is exporting
authoritarianism. In reality, telecommunications systems are tools,
neither inherently good nor bad. Understanding impacts, and fashioning
solutions, requires looking closely at local contexts.
2. Foreign companies rushed into China and helped to create their
own competitors. Foreign manufacturers handed over access to their
knowledge and capabilities, consultants helped transform Chinese
companies' business operations, and researchers went to work for their
former companies' competitors. After China's domestic
telecommunications capabilities matured, Chinese officials restricted
market access for foreign companies. Avoiding these mistakes in
emerging technologies will require closer public-private cooperation
among the United States, its partners, and allies.
3. Chinese companies expanded into overlooked markets. U.S.
companies focused primarily on larger, wealthier markets, leaving
Chinese providers to serve lower-income and rural markets. Even as
Chinese tech companies now face greater scrutiny in advanced economies,
they are still building a position of strength in emerging markets,
where most of the world's population growth is expected. To compete in
those markets, the United States and its partners have to offer
affordable alternatives.
II. Navigating the Battlefield
China's Digital Silk Road is advancing in four key areas: wireless
networks, smart cities, internet backbone, and satellites. While not
exhaustive of China's digital activities, these activities literally
stretch from the ocean floor to outer space, and they enable artificial
intelligence (AI), big data applications, and other strategic
technologies. In all four areas, China is gaining globally and
positioning itself to reap commercial and strategic rewards, but its
dominance is far from assured. It also has vulnerabilities and
weaknesses that the United States and its allies could exploit.
Wireless Networks
The world is beginning to splinter between countries that use
Chinese suppliers for their wireless networks and those that do not.
The latter category is primarily wealthy democracies. Most NATO member
states have raised barriers to Huawei's participation in their 5G
rollouts. Australia and Japan have imposed restrictions as well. India
has not made a final judgement, but it did not include any Chinese
suppliers in its initial 5G trials.
In most of the developing world, however, Chinese providers are
moving ahead. They are often the incumbent providers in these markets,
having won significant market share after offering equipment at prices
20-30 percent below their competitors. For example, Huawei is believed
to have supplied roughly 70 percent of Africa's 4G networks. 5G
networks are often built on top of existing networks, and the cost of
starting over may appear prohibitive for lower-income countries.
Open Radio Access Networks (Open RAN) could tilt the playing field
in favor of the United States. By virtualizing parts of the network
that are currently served by proprietary hardware, Open RAN allows
operators to mix and match different network components from different
vendors. For operators, the potential upside is greater vendor choice,
lower deployment costs, and less risk of being locked into a single
vendor. The United States stands to benefit because its companies are
leading providers of the specialized software and semiconductors that
Open RAN relies upon.
Open RAN could take anywhere from several years to a decade to
mature. There are already promising examples of Open RAN being deployed
around the world, at all speeds, from 2G to 5G. But the flip side of
greater vendor choice is greater complexity. There are still kinks to
work out as networks combine components from different suppliers.
Smaller operators may not have the necessary technical expertise, while
larger operators may not have the patience. Some may still prefer the
ease of going with a single vendor, even if it is more expensive.
But the 5G race is just getting started. A third of the world's
population lives in countries where 1GB mobile broadband plans are
unaffordable for average earners. Among those with mobile connections,
only 15 percent of users are expected to use 5G by 2025, while nearly
60 percent of mobile users will rely on 4G. The global market is still
up for grabs, and the United States can establish a position of
strength by making targeted investments at home and expanding financing
and training activities abroad, as outlined below in Part IV.
Smart Cities
Megatrends in innovation and urbanization are turning cities into
ground-zero for competing approaches to development and governance.\4\
The arrival of faster networks, cheaper sensors, and more sophisticated
analytics promises to help reduce crime, ease traffic, and improve
other public services, while also impacting civil liberties, data
security, and other public concerns. By 2030, seven out of ten people
in the world will live in cities, with urban populations growing
fastest in Africa and Asia. Around the world, planners will need to
decide which systems and safeguards to adopt.
China's ``safe city'' model, which emphasizes security applications
such as surveillance cameras, is gaining traction. Only China has
companies that are competitive at every step of the surveillance
process, from manufacturing cameras to training AI to deploying the
analytics. At home, Chinese companies never question the government's
use of these capabilities, and government subsidies fuel their global
expansion. Hikvision and Huawei are China's leading providers globally,
followed by Dahua and ZTE. Altogether, Chinese firms have exported
smart city products and services to more than 100 countries.\5\
These firms offer attractive capabilities at cut-rate prices. Using
their ``safe city'' systems, they claim, will reduce crime, increase
economic growth, and even help fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Facial
recognition and behavior analysis identifies wanted criminals and
alerts the police to unusual behavior, such as wandering near
restricted areas. Measuring traffic flows and enforcing driving laws
improves congestion. Temperature-sensing cameras identify people with
fevers. These and other capabilities can be fed into a central database
and command center. Offers that come with financing can give the
impression that these systems will essentially pay for themselves.
But China's ``safe city'' exports are also vulnerable in several
respects. Cases in Kenya, Pakistan, and elsewhere show crime rising,
cameras malfunctioning, and other challenges.\6\ Greater transparency
and accountability would surely unearth more instances of overpromising
and underdelivering. Chinese firms have also been willing to sell to
essentially anyone, creating reputational risks. Over time, companies
that press forward without safeguards may find their clientele
shrinking to a list of names they would not care to advertise.
These missteps open the door for the United States and its allies
to provide alternatives. For example, they could offer a ``Sustainable
City'' certification with financial support that emphasizes commercial
viability, energy efficiency, social safeguards, and data security.
This is another area where U.S. domestic renewal and global
competitiveness are strongly aligned. More cutting-edge examples of
smart cities at home--such as Charlotte, Las Vegas, and Pittsburgh--
will position U.S. companies to succeed abroad.
Internet Backbone
China is redrawing the internet as it builds key connections and
nodes, especially subsea cables and data centers, beyond its borders.
Its biggest moves are happening in Asia, Africa, and Latin America,
where Chinese tech companies face less scrutiny and demand for digital
infrastructure is expected to grow significantly in the coming years.
Africa, for example, is home to 17 percent of the world's population
but less than 1 percent of the world's installed data center capacity.
If China's asymmetric strategy for global data flows is successful, its
firms will carry, store, and mine more of the world's data while its
domestic networks will move further out of foreign reach.
In just a decade, China has graduated from being dependent on
foreign companies for subsea cables, which carry over 95 percent of the
world's international data, to controlling the world's fourth major
provider of these systems. Before being sold to Hengtong Group in 2020,
Huawei Marine (a joint venture between Huawei and Global Marine, a UK
firm) laid enough cable to circle the earth, including transcontinental
links from Asia to Africa and from Africa to South America. These
connections avoid U.S. and allied territory and could become even more
valuable during a conflict.
China's cloud providers are also marching into emerging markets.
The leading U.S. cloud providers--Amazon, Microsoft, and Google--have a
massive first-mover advantage. But the Chinese government is following
a familiar playbook: pushing data localization rules that favor its
providers, leveraging state financing, and packaging services with hard
infrastructure. Foreign governments and businesses may find it
difficult to switch providers down the road. On top of the normal
expenses of migrating from one cloud to another, they may also face
Chinese economic coercion.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government is tightening its control over
networks at home. Like a medieval castle, China's domestic network
forces international connections into a handful of chokepoints and
requires foreign carriers to use one of China's ``Big Three'' state-
owned telecom firms (China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom).
This architecture gives Beijing an unrivaled ability to monitor,
censor, and cut off traffic. Wealthier and more technically savvy
individuals can find ways to access the global internet, although
popular tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) have been heavily
curtailed.
But China's asymmetric strategy also comes with costs. Restricting
access to the global internet harms the ability of Chinese firms to
innovate, and restricting international connections leaves even China's
Big Three dependent upon foreign carriers for international data
transit. Roughly 80 percent of China's international traffic passes
through U.S. and European carriers.\7\ Mainland Chinese cities are
absent among the rankings of the world's most connected hubs, which all
have open internet exchanges, a model that remains anathema to Party
leaders. The CCP's conundrum is that greater international connectivity
requires giving up some control.
The United States and its allies have several enduring advantages
in this domain. The United States remains the world's leading hub for
internet traffic, a position made possible by its open approach to data
flows, innovative companies, and attractive market. The top three
subsea cable providers are based in the U.S., Europe, and Japan and are
responsible for nearly 90 percent of the global market. Three U.S.
companies control over half of the global market for cloud services,
and the quality of their offerings is consistently ranked higher than
their Chinese competitors. Maintaining these advantages, however, will
require competing in tomorrow's markets.
Satellites
China has gone from latecomer to leading provider of satellite
services, especially for developing markets. Following major events in
the 1990s, particularly the Gulf War and the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis,
China set out to develop its own global navigation satellite system.
Completed in 2020, China's BeiDou system is more accurate than the
Global Positioning System (GPS) in the Asia-Pacific region, although
slightly less accurate globally, and its satellites occupy fewer
orbital planes, making maintenance easier. The system also allows users
to send short text messages, and its larger footprint increases its
availability. In 165 capital cities, BeiDou provides more extensive
coverage than GPS.\8\
BeiDou advances both China's commercial and military interests.
When China exports electronics, increasingly it is exporting the BeiDou
system, which is included in phones, vehicles, farm equipment, and
consumer products. In 2019, China's satellite navigation sector pulled
in $64 billion, and by 2029, the global market for satellite navigation
devices is projected to grow to about $360 billion. BeiDou includes
even more powerful services that guide Chinese missiles, fighter jets,
and naval vessels. China has begun offering these military-grade
services to partners and could use them as a sweetener in the future
when selling arms. Strategically, China is reducing its reliance on GPS
and increasing its partners' reliance on BeiDou.
China is also carving out a niche as the go-to provider for
developing countries that want their own communications satellites. For
about $250 million, only a fraction of which is required up front due
to Chinese state financing, countries can acquire their own
geostationary communications satellite. China also provides ground
stations, testing, training, launch, and operations support. As of
early 2021, at least nine countries have bought or are in the process
of buying communications satellites from China. Several satellites have
experienced launch or operational challenges, and many of China's
customers have struggled financially.
Low-earth orbit (LEO), between 500 and 2,000 kilometers high, is
the next frontier for competition. LEO broadband constellations could
expand access to low-latency, high-speed internet globally. In addition
to reaping commercial rewards, nations with leading LEO broadband
providers could enjoy increased resiliency in their communications,
accuracy in positioning services, and enhanced early warning
capabilities. A small group of primarily U.S. and European companies,
including SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb, are on the cutting edge of these
efforts.
Some are using intersatellite-laser links, which allow satellites
to exchange data without passing through a ground-based intermediary,
increasing performance and complicating government attempts to monitor
communications.
China has its own LEO plans. Its companies are behind in the race
to launch LEO constellations, but they have generous state support,
making profitability less of an immediate concern. This second-mover,
state-led strategy allows China to see what works and emulate foreign
successes. Some countries may prefer China's alternative, which will
surely favor state control of communications. If the LEO competition
turns into a marathon, Beijing could also leverage its lending along
the Belt and Road to obtain landing rights and obstruct competing
efforts.
If the United States seizes this opportunity, the coming wave of
LEO constellations could undercut China's advantage in overlooked
markets. Western LEO broadband providers could serve rural and less-
wealthy markets without building all the ground infrastructure that has
deterred them in the past. Some financial assistance--from U.S. and
allied governments, multilateral development banks, or even
philanthropists--will be required to make these services affordable in
low-income markets. Commercial diplomacy, outlined in Part IV, could
help U.S. providers secure landing rights.
III. Leading a Coalition
China presents a challenge of scale. Its population of 1.4 billion
provides Chinese companies with preferred access to the world's largest
market of middle-class consumers and the government with access to an
ocean of data. The Chinese government's ability to direct resources,
even if inefficient and wasteful, is giving a boost to emerging
technologies and subsidizing the cost of Chinese equipment globally.
Meeting this challenge will require the United States to lead a
coalition. In the absence of a coalition, China can pit companies
against each other to access their technology, just as it did during
the 1980s and 1990s, when U.S. and allied telecom companies undercut
each other in their race to access China's market. Without the
commercial incentives that a coalition could offer, U.S. and allied
companies are likely to remain focused on the largest, wealthiest
markets, overlooking the developing world.
A group of wealthy democracies with strong common interests could
provide a critical mass. Collectively, seven U.S. allies--Australia,
Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom--
outspend China on R&D. Although the pandemic has clouded their economic
prospects, they are still projected to account for roughly a fifth of
global GDP in 2030. All these countries are U.S. treaty allies and
democracies, but the coalition's mission must extend beyond simply
protecting wealthy democracies. It must also engage and support rising
hubs on the periphery, large economies in the developing world with a
mixture of overlapping and distinct interests.
Two bridges are especially critical to building this coalition. The
first bridge stretches across the Atlantic. Despite common values, the
United States and Europe look at global networks differently. Lacking a
technology champion of similar size, some European leaders view U.S.
technology companies as even more threatening than Chinese companies.
The European Union is trying to position itself as a middle option
between the open U.S. model and the state-centric Chinese model.
Disagreements over data flows and content regulation must be managed
through existing mechanisms and new avenues such as the EU-U.S. Trade
and Technology Council.
There are real prospects for stronger transatlantic cooperation as
well. The United States could remove obstacles to cooperation by
adopting national data privacy regulations aligned with the EU's own
General Data Protection Regulation, encouraging greater competition in
the digital economy, and implementing the OECD global minimum tax
agreement. At the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency,
the United States and its European allies should work to elect Doreen
Bogdan-
Martin as the next director-general and advance socially responsible
standards in emerging areas such as AI surveillance, while blocking
Chinese proposals to hand governments more control over the internet.
The second bridge extends into the developing world and begins with
India, which is expected to become the world's most populous country in
the coming years, making it the critical swing state in the global
network competition. Realizing India's promise as a growing market and
hub for digital services and manufacturing will require breaking its
dependency on Chinese hardware.
In 2019, India imported about 40 percent of its telecommunications
equipment from China and nearly two-thirds of its data center equipment
from China and Hong Kong. Three of India's four largest carriers rely
on Huawei and ZTE equipment for 30-40 percent of their networks.
Ultimately, India's participation in the coalition should be based
on actions, not aspirations. New Delhi is the world's leader in
internet shutdowns and has declined to join talks on e-commerce at the
World Trade Organization and data flow initiatives at the G20. The
coalition should work with India to craft a roadmap for addressing
these shortcomings. India's reforms could be incentivized with policies
that strengthen its manufacturing sector, diversify supply chains,
connect its own citizens, and win customers in foreign markets.
IV. Recommendations
A successful strategy for meeting this global challenge begins at
home, but it does not end there. The United States still has its own
communities to connect and a digital divide that will widen if left to
market forces. It must push forward the frontiers of technology by
educating and attracting the next generation of innovators, ensuring
they have the resources to succeed and the competitive space for new
businesses to flourish. It must fashion data policies that protect
citizens' privacy and their security. At the same time, the United
States must compete in tomorrow's markets. With that international
competition in mind, the recommendations below focus on sharpening U.S.
tools, expanding affordable alternatives, and exploiting China's
weaknesses.
Sharpen U.S. Tools
1. Unleash the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation
(DFC). Update budget rules to allow the DFC to make better use of its
equity authority, create a position at the DFC for a senior official in
charge of ICT investments, and increase the share of digital
infrastructure projects in the DFC's portfolio.
2. Expand the U.S. Commercial Foreign Service to remove and
prevent barriers to U.S. suppliers in key emerging markets. In Africa,
for example, China has 10 to 40 government representatives for every
U.S. foreign commercial service officer there. This expansion should
include a focus on recruiting individuals with technology backgrounds.
3. Conduct a global networks assessment. The National Intelligence
Council, with input from U.S. agencies and the private sector, should
assess key trends and scenarios for telecommunications networks and
their implications for U.S. interests over the next decade. An
unclassified version of the assessment should be made public.
4. Update defense commitments to include a greater focus on
technology. The recent AUKUS partnership, which includes a technology
sharing dimension, is an encouraging example of updating defense
partnerships for the digital age. More should be done to adopt existing
tech and invest in future capabilities. For example, NATO members could
be permitted to count some spending on critical digital infrastructure
with a direct application to NATO communications, such as select 5G
systems, toward their overall spending obligations.\9\
Expand Affordable Alternatives
5. Launch digital pilot projects. As the U.S. and its allies look
to launch pilot projects for the G7's Build Back Better World
partnership and related efforts, such as the Blue Dot Network, they
should put an emphasis on digital infrastructure projects, which in
addition to being important, often cost less and take less time to
complete than large transport and energy projects.
6. Put a price on security. Provide technical assistance to
improve how countries assess costs and reach decisions. The initial
price tag on Chinese projects often only includes the up-front costs
associated with construction, overlooking maintenance and operations
costs. Rather than simply warning against security risks, the economic
costs of those risks should be estimated, widely advertised, and
factored into cost-benefit analyses.
7. Pursue a digital trade deal that pushes back against the rise
in data localization policies, supports the responsible use of ICT and
emerging technologies such as AI, and lowers barriers to access for
small businesses.
8. Develop a ``Sustainable Cities'' certification for cities and
companies that emphasizes commercial viability, energy efficiency,
social safeguards, and data security. Cities receiving the
certification could receive financial and technical assistance.
Companies that qualify could receive priority when competing for
projects in those cities.
9. Create an Open RAN international academy. Open RAN offers more
choice and presents less risk of becoming locked into a single vendor,
but it also adds complexity. This effort would train foreign operators
and share specifications for tested and trusted combinations of
hardware to reduce uncertainty.
10. Launch a global cloud public-private partnership. Work with
U.S. companies and NGOs to support pilot cloud projects in emerging
markets that package services, hard infrastructure, and training
opportunities. In addition to building partners' technical capacities
and increasing the adoption of trusted services, these projects could
be used to incentivize openness to data flows.
11. Bring LEO broadband to low-income markets. Help U.S. LEO
broadband providers secure landing rights overseas, and work through
multilateral development banks to provide financial support for
customers in low-income markets to access these services.
Exploit China's Weaknesses
12. Invest in technologies that challenge authoritarian networks.
Increase funding for the Open Technology Fund (OTF) and other efforts
to support tools such as Tor and Signal that help dissidents
communicate securely and reconstitute their websites after an attack.
More sophisticated tools will also make China's authoritarian approach
more expensive to maintain.
13. Expose false claims. Chinese companies have left a trail of
exaggerations and outright lies about their ``safe city'' systems,
surveillance cameras, data centers, and other products. Technical
assistance and public-awareness campaigns that uncover and expose these
shortcomings--not just security flaws but also performance shortcomings
and broken promises--could help shift the cost-benefit analysis of
decisionmakers.
14. Expand information-sharing. Much of China's commercial
diplomacy is conducted bilaterally and opaquely, which maximizes its
negotiating power, limits outside scrutiny, and prevents its partners
from sharing information with each other. The United States should
encourage countries to adopt laws that require publishing government
contracts and create opportunities for developing countries to share
information and lessons learned with each other.
15. Cement first-mover advantages. China is attempting to match
and surpass U.S. digital capabilities, but it remains behind in cloud
computing, LEO broadband, and other important areas. Even as U.S.
policymakers address areas where the United States lags (e.g., 5G),
they must help U.S. workers and companies press these existing
advantages through policies that support innovating, expanding into
foreign markets, and striking long-term partnership agreements.
Endnotes:
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______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley
Good morning. Today's hearing of the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China on ``Techno-Authoritarianism: Platform for
Repression in China and Abroad'' will come to order.
This hearing will explore China's role in embracing technology-
enhanced authoritarianism and promoting its spread around the world. In
China and around the globe, we are seeing that the same technology that
drives the global economy, facilitates communication, enables financial
flows, and provides the conveniences of modern life can also be used
for repression. Without proper guardrails to protect privacy and basic
human rights, technology can control populations, trample freedom of
expression, and undermine institutions of democratic governance.
For the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party, it starts
at home. Over many years, the Commission has documented the development
of what has become the most pervasive surveillance state the world has
ever seen. Authorities embrace technologies such as artificial
intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing--the building blocks of
the modern economy--to impose political and social control of targeted
populations. These technologies offer the government an unprecedented
degree of control, enabled by the collection of massive amounts of data
from cell phones, personal computers, DNA, security cameras, and more.
Nowhere do we see this more tragically than in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region. Today we will hear testimony outlining the extent of
the surveillance in Xinjiang, as well as the heart-wrenching toll on
individuals and their communities. We will also hear from expert
witnesses who will shed light on the use of technology in mainland
China and abroad, both for legitimate purposes of government efficiency
and digital connectivity but also to spread the web of repressive
control to cities across China, regions across China, the developing
world, and even the Chinese diaspora community in the United States.
This adds up to a complex picture. The technologies we will hear
about have dual-use potential to be used for good or for ill. Many
countries to which China exports surveillance systems and elements of
the so-called ``safe cities'' model embrace these technologies out of a
desire to combat crime or reduce traffic or provide municipal services.
Yet these technologies, this high-tech authoritarianism, can be used to
strip rights and dignity from millions of people across the planet.
Acting to defend freedom and to defend democracy will require the
establishment of norms for the proper use and boundaries of this
technology, but we can't stop there. We have to work with defenders of
freedom across the globe to develop attractive and affordable
alternatives.
This won't be easy. That's why Co-chair McGovern and I have
convened this hearing. We need to hear from experts on how Congress,
the United States Government, and the international community can
address these difficult challenges. Just as the United States confronts
limitations in its ability to shape the behavior of the Chinese
government, so too will we face limitations in shaping the rest of the
world, especially when it comes to technology that empowers everyday
life. That's why we need smart action in concert with a coalition of
partners.
I look forward to the testimony today to help us work to identify
the approaches that can harness technology in a way that respects
rather than endangers fundamental human rights.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing on the Chinese
government's use of technology and digital platforms to expand and
export its repressive policies.
Where there was once optimism that the internet and new
technologies would create a more open, democratized global commons,
there is now a cloud of darkness. Anti-democratic and authoritarian
governments have learned to harness such technology as a means to
assert social control.
This is no longer just about human rights abuses suffered by people
over there. It is about the risks we now face from the phones in our
pockets.
Take TikTok. It is immensely popular in the United States and can
be a lot of fun, or so my kids tell me. It was developed by a Chinese
company. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But we hear
reports that videos on topics sensitive to its government are blocked
or disappear. Americans deserve to know whether China's censorship
regime is intruding on their daily lives.
This concern is why the Commission, under my chairmanship in the
last Congress, expanded its reporting to include ``Human Rights
Violations in the United States and Globally.''
Our soon-to-be-released annual report will document how the Chinese
government silences criticism, chills the expression of political
views, and undermines international norms. The Commission's next
hearing will look at the economic coercion aspect of this trend.
We cannot forget that the Chinese government's techno-
authoritarianism is felt most gravely by the Uyghurs and other Turkic
Muslims. The surveillance regime they have set up in Xinjiang is the
most advanced and enveloping in the world. Is this the model for the
rest of China and the world? This is the key question we hope today's
witnesses will address.
How can the United States ensure that its exports do not abet the
spread of the surveillance state? Can we harness international
partners? How do individuals make sound consumer choices?
We are addressing an immensely complicated and technical set of
issues. I'm pleased that our witnesses bring a breadth of expertise to
these evolving challenges. I hope you will continue to share your
research with us.
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Witness Biographies
Geoffrey Cain, foreign correspondent, author, technologist, and
scholar of East and Central Asia
Geoffrey Cain has written for The Economist, the Wall Street
Journal, Time, Foreign Policy, The New Republic and The Nation and is a
contributing editor at The Mekong Review. He is a frequent guest on
CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and Bloomberg. He is the author, most recently, of
``The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's
Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.''
Samantha Hoffman, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute
Samantha Hoffman's work explores the domestic and global
implications of the Chinese Communist Party's approach to state
security. It offers new ways of thinking about understanding and
responding to China's pursuit of artificial intelligence and big data-
enabled capabilities to augment political and social control. Dr.
Hoffman's analysis is widely sought after by governments across the
world and media. She has publicly testified in the United States
Congress, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and the European
Parliament.
Yaqiu Wang, Senior Researcher on China at Human Rights Watch
Yaqiu Wang works on issues including internet censorship, freedom
of expression, protection of civil society and human rights defenders,
and women's rights. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, The
Atlantic, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. She has provided
commentary to the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and others. Prior to
joining Human Rights Watch, Wang worked for the Committee to Protect
Journalists.
Jonathan Hillman, Senior Fellow with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies
Jonathan Hillman is the director of the Reconnecting Asia Project,
one of the most extensive open-source databases tracking China's Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI). Prior to joining CSIS, Hillman served as a
policy adviser at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he
contributed to the 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy and the
President's Trade Agenda and directed the research and writing process
for essays, speeches, and other material explaining U.S. trade and
investment policy. Hillman is the author, most recently, of ``The
Digital Silk Road: China's Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future''
(HarperCollins, 2021).
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