Totalitarianism is Complete and Utter Control

"Hong Kong's democratic leadership has been arrested en masse,and recently citizens found they were no longer able to access certain websites."

"Under the National Security Law, the government can force websites to remove any information that could 'endanger national security'."

"Schoolbooks are being edited and teachers' roles circumscribed. It is possible that Hong Kong could see even more repression as the regime uses its tools of surveillance to quash any thought of independence."

"In the ultimate measure of extraterritorial control, the National Security Law provides that any person who speaks out against the Chinese regime anywhere in the world can be extradited and prosecuted in China."

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Senior Fellow, Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa

The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly dominated by one man, Xi Jinping, whose power is stronger than any leader since Mao. Lintao Zhang / Staff / Getty Images

 

Beijing recently named two Danish politicians in an extradition request; their crime? aiding a former Hong Kong legislator in his asylum search in Denmark. That Denmark has never signed an extradition agreement with China is fortuitous both for the Danish politicians and for Denmark itself since there are no legal obligations to impel them to respond to China. On the other hand there are many countries which did sign such an extradition agreement never realizing that a complication such as the National Security Law would ever trouble them.

There are, however other avenues that Beijing can take to compel people to bend to its will and in this regard the Chinese diaspora is particularly vulnerable, no matter where they have emigrated to. They can be threatened that harm will come to their relatives still living in China to coerce them from criticizing the regime they left behind. Their relatives become virtual hostages to the diaspora -- Chinese citizens of other countries being forced to act with great circumspection to avoid payback.

Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has turned sharp left from authoritarian to totalitarian with a cult of leader-worship in full display. The Chinese Communist Party no longer indulges in any pretense to appease the sensibilities of the international community that it continues to approach the democritization of its political agenda. China's embrace of capitalism did not, after all, lead it toward a form of Chinese democracy; its growing influence in the international community, its status as a trade and technology giant have given it free rein to remove the facade of moderation as it moved steadily toward dictatorship.

Photo: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

 

According to The Economist's 2019 Democracy Index, the current regression away from any semblance of democracy resulted in a fall of 23 places in ranking in one year. A situation that now places China near the bottom, below Iran at 153 out of 167 countries. It isn't complicated to recognize totalitarian rule; a sole political party ranks as the leading indicator. Added to which is intolerance of varying opinions and the control of its citizens' lives, along with manipulation of the system of justice. 

Citizens are monitored by its Social Credit System through WeChat and Weibo through the use of algorithms identifying those who are bold enough to mention June 4 or May 35, code for the Tiananmen Square massacre or referencing Winnie the Pooh, with a gait similar to President Xi's own. There are subtle identifiers that single out 'social deviants', as simple as late-loan payments, acquiring traffic violations to earn poor social credit scores. As a result of which people can find themselves unemployed or lacking the right to send their offspring to a good school.

 

New Chinese facial recognition technology can identify faces with masks. Source Hauyon's Website CSIS

 

Large demographics cannot gain permission to travel either within the country or abroad as punishment for low social credit scores, and citizens become careful in their exercise of the social weal as it is seen in China, to avoid appearing on the blacklists, becoming skilled in self-censorship. Domestic and foreign companies are compelled to submit to the Corporate Social Credit System, since failure to comply with regulations or speaking ill against government policies will ensure no access to grants, procurement contracts, land, or lower taxes.

Should employees or suppliers themselves gain poor scores, the company itself is punished. These credit systems are set to be further firmed up with party committees in every company prepared to ensure corporate decisions take care with their obligations to advance the interests of the Communist Party. Each citizen is obliged to study on an app that takes note when the users are scrolling too quickly to properly mentally ingest the information through the guiding ideology, Xi Jinping Thought, a three-volume publication.

 

Visitors being filmed by a security camera with facial recognition technology.
Source: Photo by NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images.

Typically, totalitarian regimes are intolerant of religions; in plain evidence in Tibet and Xinjiang where incarceration for 're-education' purposes to achieve 'harmony' and dampen 'splittism' is the overarching goal of control of people's thoughts, aspirations and loyalties. Voice pattern telephone surveillance, forced labour and mass sterilization are all part of the extensive program of brain-washing to achieve CCP loyalty in the People's Republic of China. 

When Turkic Muslim Uyghurs are released from re-education to return home, a young Han man or woman is assigned to mandatorily live with them to monitor that the family speaks Mandarin exclusively, and does not revert to its former religious practices. In this 'family program' package the Han handlers are also encouraged to marry Uyghurs in a long-term strategy of thinning the genetic stream as well as the cultural-religious landscape. 

Persecution of Chinese Christians continues, with churches seeing their crosses torn down, and where  Xi's photo and Xi Jinping Thought are given prominent place in sanctuaries while senior clerical appointments  must be approved by the Party. Officially unapproved covert House churches, when their presence is discovered are routinely shuttered, their clergy incarcerated.

Those Chinese citizens oblivious or uncaring of the backlash they will incur, speak out on such issues as free speech, environmental degradation, expropriation without compensation at their peril, known to having been subjected to daily interrogations while seated in a metal tiger chair with wrists and ankles in vices in freezing environments. Websites are shut down in their hundreds of thousands in response to 'inappropriate' content, exemplified by criticism of President Xi and his party.

 

While the novel coronavirus was unleashed globally after emerging in Wuhan, China, with the result that the world economy suffered overwhelming losses in 2020, China's economy grew 2.3 percent in that same year even as every other major economy suffered dreadful recessions. China is now on track to supplant the United States as the world's foremost economy, within a decade. When Beijing faces criticism from abroad it takes immediate punishing steps.

Australia had the unmitigated gall to ban Huawei in 2018 from its 5G upgrade, and more recently called for an international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process by enraging Beijing, trade barriers abruptly appeared and Australia lost roughly $3 billion in commodity sales to China in 2020. Canadian canola shippers too were targeted by Beijing following the house arrest of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei,  on a U.S. extradition request.

'Practical' business interests are now calling on their governments to avoid unnecessarily alienating the trade giant that China is. At the centre of the most dynamic region in the world, China is a sought-after trade and investment source. The fear is that failure to 'constructively' engage with Beijing on its very own terms will result in long-term harm to other nations' business interests. And so, nations wedded to the concept of protection of human rights are prepared to set those concerns aside for the greater interests of securing prosperity linked to Chinese business opportunities.