China’s Xi Jinping is building on the covid surveillance state to tighten the Communist Party’s control on the Chinese people. The New York Times reports:
The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents.
Perhaps the most important detail, though, was how each unit was color-coded. Green meant trustworthy. Yellow, needing attention. Orange required “strict control.”
Xi’s system relies on the police, of course, but also, and maybe more importantly, on civilians spying on one another:
