The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China

Minxin Pei

Book

The Sentinel State

Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China

Minxin Pei

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2023

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About this book

Countering recent hype around technology, a leading expert argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the Leninist surveillance state.

China watchers long argued that economic liberalization and prosperity would be harbingers of democracy. Instead, the Communist Party’s grip has strengthened. How? The answer lies in the effectiveness of the surveillance state. And the source of that effectiveness is not just facial recognition AI and phone tracking. Technology is important, but what matters more is China’s vast army of domestic spies.

Central government surveillance data is confidential, so Minxin Pei turned to local reports, police gazettes, leaked documents, and interviews with exiled dissidents to provide a detailed look at the evolution, organization, and tactics of the surveillance state. Following the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, the Party invested in a coercive apparatus operated by a small number of secret police capable of mobilizing millions of citizen informants. The Party’s Leninist bureaucratic structure—whereby officials and activists penetrate every sector of the economy and civil society, from universities to delivery companies to monasteries—ensures that Beijing’s eyes and ears are everywhere.

Rigorously empirical and rich in historical insight, The Sentinel State is a singular contribution to our knowledge about Chinese state coercion and, more generally, the survival strategies of authoritarian regimes.

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

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

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

Unravels the CCP’s vast surveillance apparatus in extraordinary detail….an eye-opener for anyone interested in authoritarian surveillance and the politics and governance of China.
-- Olivia Cheung Pacific 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Frontmatter
i

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Contents
vii

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Abbreviations
ix

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Introduction
1
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1 The Evolution of the Chinese Surveillance State
29
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2 Command, Control, and Coordination
68
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3 Organizing Surveillance
96
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4 Spies and Informants
129
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5 Mass Surveillance Programs
158
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6 Controlling “Battlefield Positions”
184
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7 Upgrading Surveillance
213
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Conclusion
238
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Appendix: Informants and Surveillance Targets
251
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Notes
271
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Acknowledgments
313
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Index
315

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

February 21, 2024

eBook ISBN:

9780674296459

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674296459

eBook ISBN: 9780674296459

The Sentinel State

Overview

About this book

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 The Evolution of the Chinese Surveillance State

2 Command, Control, and Coordination

3 Organizing Surveillance

4 Spies and Informants

5 Mass Surveillance Programs

6 Controlling “Battlefield Positions”

7 Upgrading Surveillance

Conclusion

Appendix: Informants and Surveillance Targets

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Bibliographic data