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The Sentinel State
Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China
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Minxin Pei
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
Rising prosperity was supposed to bring democracy to China, yet the Communist Party’s political monopoly endures. How? Minxin Pei looks to the surveillance state. Though renowned for high-tech repression, China’s surveillance system is above all a labor-intensive project. Pei delves into the human sources of coercion at the foundation of CCP power.
Reviews
In his fascinating, meticulously researched ‘The Sentinel State,’ Pei focuses on how the Chinese government upgraded its surveillance capabilities to prevent another social movement like the one that inspired the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising.
-- Annalee Newitz New York Times Book Review
-- Annalee Newitz New York Times Book Review
Mr. Pei’s impressive research includes his examination of hundreds of official and leaked government documents as well as his interviews with dissidents who offer accounts of the surveillance they have been subjected to…[his] chronicle ranges across recent Chinese history — from Mao’s China to the post Tiananmen Square period to the increasingly oppressive watchfulness of Xi Jinping’s regime today.
-- L. Gordon Crovitz Wall Street Journal
-- L. Gordon Crovitz Wall Street Journal
Pei believes it is surveillance, and not the oft-cited factors of economic growth, nationalism, and the culture of deference, that is ‘the key to the survival’ of the Chinese communist party-state. Such a robust system could fail only if the government’s revenue managers failed to raise enough tax money to support it.
-- Andrew J. Nathan Foreign Affairs
-- Andrew J. Nathan Foreign Affairs
An authoritative study of China’s surveillance system and its ability to strangle any possible dissent…Pei reveals the vast machinery of surveillance and repression in China, fueled by leaders’ fear, distrust, and paranoia.
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Pei ably untangles and demystifies the Chinese surveillance system: for all its obscure and sinister aura, he paints it as the work of harried bureaucrats who struggle with glitchy equipment and unproductive employees…It adds up to a clear-eyed account of China’s surveillance crusade.
-- Publishers Weekly
-- Publishers Weekly
An instant classic, offering a peerless and encompassing explanation for a great puzzle of the twenty-first century: How did China’s autocratic regime outlast its peers? Through painstaking research, Minxin Pei has reverse-engineered the hidden system of preventive repression, exposing a world that is essential to understanding China’s past and, indeed, its future.
-- Evan Osnos, author of the National Book Award–winning Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury
-- Evan Osnos, author of the National Book Award–winning Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury
A brilliantly researched and eye-opening masterpiece on modern China’s subtle power dynamics. Shining a light on the masterful strategy of ‘preventive repression,’ Pei offers a riveting exploration of China’s covert surveillance mechanisms.
-- Yuhua Wang, author of The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development
-- Yuhua Wang, author of The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development
A timely, important book on a subject that has received little attention in Western literature. Pei offers both an illuminating analysis of the surveillance state’s historical evolution and a broad overview of its operations across different sectors in contemporary China. Theoretically informed and empirically rich, this is a welcome contribution.
-- Lynette Ong, author of Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China
-- Lynette Ong, author of Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China
China’s development of high-tech surveillance is crucial to understanding Beijing’s domestic aims and international goals, yet it is still poorly understood. Pei brings together sharp and cogent analysis with deep research to illuminate one of the most important issues of today.
-- Rana Mitter, author of China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
-- Rana Mitter, author of China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
An incisive analysis of a remarkably durable system of state power. Pei argues that China’s already formidable apparatus of political control, augmented with new resources and cutting-edge technologies, has become the most effective surveillance state in history.
-- Andrew G. Walder, author of Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution
-- Andrew G. Walder, author of Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 13, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9780674296459
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
336
eBook ISBN:
9780674296459
Keywords for this book
repression; techno totalitarianism; informer network; xi jinping; ministry public security; hong kong; taiwan; covid; pandemic; censorship; social control; modernization; grassroots; espionage; law enforcement; grid management; big data; suppression
