How tensions with the West are putting the future of China’s Skynet mass surveillance system at stake

The twin pressures of the US-China trade war and threatened sanctions of sensitive critical components are forcing security authorities to turn to innovative solutions

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Some US lawmakers have urged the United States to sanction Chinese companies supplying hardware to the Xinjiang surveillance programme. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:30pm, 23 Sep 2018Updated: 3:27pm, 4 Oct 2018

The Skynet is falling.

The world’s biggest video surveillance system, under construction in China, relies on critical components from the West and supplies are drying up as the United States and other nations tighten trade restrictions, according to scientists and engineers involved in the programme.

Skynet, as China’s national security network is known, had 170 million cameras last year and Beijing plans to have another 400 million units installed across the country by 2020.

The system uses artificial intelligence, including one technology under development that could eventually allow the government to identify any one of its 1.3 billion citizens anytime, anywhere.

It is already possible for some CCTV cameras to identify an individual 15km away (9 miles) and they are deployed in many sensitive areas, such as the disputed islands in the South China Sea, Xinjiang’s border with Afghanistan in the northwest, and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, to reveal targets of interest at night, in snow, and through smog.

The small tube device inside the camera that makes this possible generates a powerful laser beam every trillionth of a second.

China has installed CCTV cameras in sensitive areas throughout the country, including in Tiananmen Square. Photo: Simon Song