Foreign Affairs published on 6 February 2024 an article titled "Why China Can't Export Its Model of Surveillance" by Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College.
China has a high-tech surveillance network that blankets the entire country. But the author emphasizes that it also relies on a highly labor-intensive organization. The Communist Party of China has constructed a vast network of millions of informers and spies whose often unpaid work has been critical to the regime's survival. It is these men and women, more than cameras or artificial intelligence, that have allowed Beijing to suppress dissent. Without a network of this size, the system could not function. This means that, despite the party's best efforts, the Chinese security model is impossible to export.
