The Transparent Chinese

BEIJING — About once a month, Hao Jian is politely asked by the police “to have a cup of tea.” He knows it wouldn’t be prudent to say, “No thank you.”

A government critic and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, Mr. Hao signed Charter 08, a 2008 manifesto modeled on Charter 77, the 1977 document that helped usher in the end of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia. He has participated in forums about democracy and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, where his cousin died from a bullet wound. The police tap his phone, read his email and follow him. On special occasions, like for several months after Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the government forbids him to leave China. “To me, your life is totally transparent,” a police officer told Mr. Hao during one of his recent chats.

Among my acquaintances and friends like Hao Jian, dozens are compelled to lead transparent lives. And in addition to government critics, the authorities watch organizers of church services held in private homes, Falun Gong practitioners and simple petitioners. No one knows how many people are under surveillance. We can’t even be sure which agency oversees that daunting task.

The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

China is blanketed with surveillance cameras. They have been installed on most streets, in supermarkets and in classrooms. The official purpose of this growing network — known as Skynet — is often described as “law-and-order management.” But high-profile crimes — like the murder of an infant in a stolen car in Jilin Province earlier this year — suggest that the cameras have little to do with fighting crime: The costly camera network was criticized by the public for failing to find a suspect in that case.

By contrast, the surveillance system worked perfectly when targeting Li Tiantian, a Shanghai-based human rights lawyer. According to Ms. Li, security officials tried to show her boyfriend video footage of her walking into a hotel with other men, suggesting she was unfaithful. (He refused to watch it.)

The main purpose of the surveillance, of course, is control and intimidation. For almost a decade, “weiwen,” or “maintaining social stability,” has been the government’s public mantra, but this pursuit is simply a way to justify the Communist Party’s hold on power. “Stability” has been deemed more important than education, health care and even national defense. In the 2012 government budget, expenses for domestic security exceeded $111 billion, compared with a defense budget of $106 billion.

Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing who is in prison for seeking refuge in a U.S. Consulate in 2012, among other crimes, gave a glimpse of how the surveillance power is abused. He boasted in 2010 that his city’s surveillance system had identified 4,000 “unwelcome” people who had entered Chongqing around the time of Chinese New Year. Most of them were found and forced to leave the city within hours.

Yet most Chinese citizens seem unconcerned about living transparent lives. Even on social media, the most open opinion platform in China, few people question the legality and necessity of the extensive surveillance network. A survey conducted in 2012 among students in Central China Normal University showed that only about 55 percent of them were opposed to the installation of cameras in dormitories.

As an outspoken writer, I have become paranoid. I often suspect that I am being followed and videotaped, but I have no way of proving it. I occasionally turn around to see if the police are nearby. When I sit down at a café with friends, I often cannot help checking under the table for a listening device.

My internal battle to fight off the constant fear of not knowing what could happen to me at the hands of the government affects my judgment. I don’t know if this has affected my writing. Intuition tells me it hasn’t, but I have trouble trusting my intuition. It is the breakdown of trust — trust of oneself, trust of others — that is the worst consequence of living a transparent life.

At a party a few months ago, I witnessed one friend accusing another of being an agent for the Communist Party. It was not an isolated incident. I cannot avoid the thought that among my acquaintances someone is spying on me. I tell myself to be sincere with everyone, but my sincerity is frequently mixed with caution.

People under surveillance often cannot help look for ulterior motives behind ordinary social interactions. We are cautious when interacting with strangers. If a conversation with a stranger is inevitable, we tend to avoid speaking our minds. We fear whatever we say may be used against us. A friend recently told me that he has not made a single good friend in the past few years because it is difficult for him to trust people.

The Chinese government talks about building a “harmonious society.” But how can a society become truly harmonious if surveillance cameras are everywhere and everyone has to live with suspicion and fear? What kind of lives can we lead without trust?

Murong Xuecun, the pen name of Hao Qun, is the author of “Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu.” This article was adapted from a speech delivered in New York on Nov. 14 at a symposium on surveillance, co-sponsored by PEN America. It was translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz from the Chinese.

If you don't believe the United States is actually using its intelligence for fighting terrorism then you're just as delusional as the people you refer to. Of course the government abuses and misuses its power on its own people - but the evidence is clear that the government is fighting terrorism. Many of the leaks, going all the way back to wikileaks, confirm this - not to mention the body bags.

Both you and the article miss a basic point, which is that the preservation of government, for its own sake, is in the interest of both the people who compose the government, and also of the people. This is particularly true in democratic countries, where the government is the vehicle for the popular will. The fall of a democratic government almost always leads to tyranny, because very few revolutionaries go to the trouble of overthrowing a government to not take advantage of the opportunity to impose their own point of view. In authoritarian regimes like China, there is less of an overlap between the interests of the people and the interests of the government. Though, there is still a tremendous overlap. The only thing worse than a bad government is no government.

The irony here, is that individuals and through them society are hurt tremendously by the loss of individual privacy, while institutions and society as a whole are benefitted by becoming more transparent. Yet, the balance of power is such that it is the individuals who are disclosing more and more information and the institutions who are controlling it.

Seems like there's room for another series of disruptions in the relationship between individuals and governments. I have a hunch that a society where rationality, privacy, and data security are truly prized would have economic advantages over the current ones.

Possibly, but the Communist Party is perhaps the only one of its kind that uses tax money to protect its stability, not necessarily the stability of the nation. I think that's exactly what the author is trying to say with this statement:

> For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

Can't agree more. There are loads of examples show that surveillance cameras did play an important role in crime prevention and criminal convictions, but they are conveniently ignored in the article ... He made some valid points, but using surveillance cameras to support them? I don't buy it.