Is China The Role Model For Technocratic Dictatorship?
From Chinese super-rich to vegetable
vendors and even beggars are rapidly embracing cashless payments, as it
is sold in the name of convenience, security, and immunity from
counterfeiting by the Chinese communist party. Ali pay the mobile
payment service of Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba group
holdings and WeChat the mobile payment service of Tencent holdings are
top two mobile payment services in China and are under the complete
control of Chinese government. According to the reports of Forrester
Research the value of mobile payments during 2016 in the US was $126
billion USD and at the same time it was $9 trillion USD in China and
reached $38 trillion USD till the end of 2017.
China is not only adopting mobile payment
options but the authorities are also pushing for AI based facial
recognition payment systems. KFC pioneered the facial recognition
payment system in its Hangzhou branch where customers face is enough to
pay for its services. The system uses “Liveness” an AI algorithm and a
system of 3D cameras that recognizes a person by analysing about 600
facial features, later this data is matched with government database and
after the identification of the person the amount is deducted from his
bank account. It is obvious that more personal data is being collected
that can be used for targeted marketing and for the confiscation of the
wealth of the honest citizens if they don’t comply with the government
authorities which is perfectly in compliance with the Orwellian
nightmare of technocratic dictatorship.
In addition to cashless society the dream
of technocratic dictatorship is incomplete with the use of private block
chain technology. China banned Bitcoin, but they are among the early
adopters of blockchain the same technology behind Bitcoin. Peoples Bank
of China which is about to issues a private blockchain based
cryptocurrency and Alibaba Group which holds most of the patents related
to blockchain is keenly trying to exploit this technology for the
internet of things. Both centrally controlled cryptocurrency and the
internet of things are about complete social control; therefore they can
be very helpful to Chinese communist party to realize its dream of
Totalitarianism.
China included blockchain technology in
its 13th five-year plan and in 2018 “international blockchain
development center” has been established by China for setting future
industrial standards for this technology. Recently China started to
collect taxes and granting electronic invoices through blockchain
technology. The smart city initiative and Blockchain based industrial
parks in Hangzhou, Chengdu, and other major cities have pushed Chinese
automakers and other industries to embrace blockchain technology into
their business models. The Chinese blockchain development report 2018
and the recent report of people’s daily titled “three questions to
blockchain” clearly indicates the interests of Chinese communist party
into this technology.
Peoples bank of China is vastly exploring the options regarding centrally controlled cryptocurrency as the blockchain based digital currency and payment networks will offer the benefits of digital currency in addition to traceability and control over its use.
Peoples bank of China is vastly exploring the options regarding centrally controlled cryptocurrency as the blockchain based digital currency and payment networks will offer the benefits of digital currency in addition to traceability and control over its use.
Zhou Xiaochuan the longest Serving
governor of Peoples Bank of China stated that physical coins and
currency notes will shrink or completely disappear and according to Yi
Fei the vice governor of Peoples Bank of China said that governments can
only drive innovation into the cryptocurrencies when they will issue
their own ones. The central bankers of China know that a centrally
controlled cryptocurrency will give the government a greater control and
enhanced monitoring over its citizens, thus money laundering and other
financial crimes can be curbed. According to “Jing Xianyang” CEO of
Alibaba’s Financial Arm Ant Financial, the company holds most of the
patents of the blockchain technology in the world. Recently Alibaba
group holdings invested $1.6 billion USD into the blockchain technology.
Alibaba cloud and Xiamen are investing in blockchain initiatives that
can be used for the internet of things.
A comprehensive network of CCTV cameras
backed by facial recognition technology is another tool of Chinese
communist party for controlling its citizens. A 31-year-old Chinese man
alleged of financial crime was caught by police at a pop concert event
among the crowd of 60,000 by using facial recognition technology. In
August last year at Qingdao international beer festival at Shandong
province of China 25 suspects were also arrested by police using facial
recognition technology. China has a network of over 170 million CCTV
cameras and up to 2020 further 400 million will be added to this number.
According to Chinese authorities, it is next to impossible to evade
this AI backed comprehensive surveillance system.
A sunglass equipped with facial recognition technology is yet another surveillance tool of Chinese police to track and capture suspects. The sunglasses match the facial features of individuals in huge crowds with an internal government database and on match with a suspicious person the data is immediately sent to the concerned police officers on the ground for arresting the suspects. Such a technology has helped Chinese authorities to capture 26 people in the central city of Zhengzhou who were carrying fake ID’s according to a report of people’s daily newspaper.
A sunglass equipped with facial recognition technology is yet another surveillance tool of Chinese police to track and capture suspects. The sunglasses match the facial features of individuals in huge crowds with an internal government database and on match with a suspicious person the data is immediately sent to the concerned police officers on the ground for arresting the suspects. Such a technology has helped Chinese authorities to capture 26 people in the central city of Zhengzhou who were carrying fake ID’s according to a report of people’s daily newspaper.
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