At Foreign Policy this week, Securing Democracy’s Lindsay Gorman and Matt Schrader described how American tech firms and institutions “are lending expertise, reputational credence, and even technology to Chinese surveillance companies, wittingly or otherwise,” following the exposure of massive quantities of surveillance data by a firm, SenseNets, which claims to have a partnership with Microsoft. (Microsoft denies that any such partnership exists.)
[… T]he party is leveraging China’s vibrant tech ecosystem, inviting Chinese companies to participate through conventional government-procurement tools. Companies built the re-education camps. Companies supply the software that watches Uighurs online and the cameras that surveil their physical movements. While based in China, many are deeply embedded in the international tech community, in ways that raise serious questions about the misuse of critical new technologies. Foreign firms, eager to access Chinese funding and data, have rushed into partnerships without heed to the ways the technologies they empower are being used in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
In February 2018, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced a wide-ranging research partnership with Chinese artificial-intelligence giant and global facial-recognition leader SenseTime. SenseTime then held a 49 percent stake in SenseNets, with robust cross-pollination of technical personnel. SenseNets’ parent company Netposa (also Chinese) has offices in Silicon Valley and Boston, received a strategic investment from Intel Capital in 2010, and has invested in U.S. robotics start-ups: Bito—led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University—and Exyn, a drone software company competing in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) artificial-intelligence challenge. This extensive enmeshing raises both moral and dual-use national-security questions. Dual-use technology is tech that can be put to both civilian and military uses and as such is subject to tighter controls. Nuclear power and GPS are classic examples, but new technologies such as facial recognition, augmented reality and virtual reality, 5G, and quantum computing are beginning to raise concerns about their dual applicability.
[…] Equally concerning is that the details of technical and research collaborations with Chinese companies can be opaque to international partners, concealing ethically objectionable activities. When Yale University geneticist Kenneth Kidd shared DNA samples with a scientific colleague from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Institute on Forensic Science, he had no idea they would be used to refine genetic surveillance techniques in Xinjiang. Massachusetts-based company Thermo Fisher is also implicated: Until it was reported last month, the company sold DNA sequencers directly to authorities in Xinjiang for genetic mapping. Western companies and institutions must be far more vigilant in scrutinizing how Chinese partners are using their products, especially emerging technologies. [Source]
On Twitter, Charles Rollett highlighted more examples from his own reporting:
Infinova, a US-based surveillance manufacturer, sold video management software for use in Xinjiang’s “smart cities” in 2017. It previously boasted that it was one of the Xinjiang Ministry of Public Security’s top recommended brands. https://t.co/4Dow3bsLqg
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
After @ipvideo contacted Infinova about this, all mentions of Xinjiang were deleted from its website. Infinova even got a trade mag to delete an old interview of one of their managers boasting that Infinova had over 130k cameras in XJ alone. https://t.co/i7QnfIXzIV
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
Also: Hikvision and Dahua, world’s 2 largest security cam manufacturers, have won over $1 billion in Xinjiang gov contracts for surveillance systems in mosques, re-education camps, and police stations…https://t.co/FqXaIMnmtwhttps://t.co/rZdJ9Q6fjphttps://t.co/jqRix5TOFU pic.twitter.com/AchLJab7cA
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
Both firms rely substantially on Intel, Nvidia, Seagate, and Western Digital for their AI/storage/smart city solutions. There are too many examples but this @ipvideo article lists a few: https://t.co/v4JNADlNeS pic.twitter.com/XWyuaf2E8n
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
When I asked a rep at a Seagate booth touting Hik/Dahua integrations if they were re-evaluating their relationship with Hikvision due to human rights/Xinjiang concerns, I was literally told:
“We support everyone as long as they purchase our products” pic.twitter.com/LPAXf8xB3b
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
There are many more examples – this is just the tip of the iceberg. Little doubt that Western tech firms are complicit in building up Chinese state surveillance systems. Question is: will they do anything about it now, esp. if no US sanctions are passed?
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
Anyway, worth re-reading @isaacstonefish‘s opinion piece in @washingtonpost highlighting this very issue: https://t.co/wAYUhIHQRx
— Charles Rollet (@CharlesRollet1) March 20, 2019
Perhaps the most prominent recent case of a Western firm’s willingness to participate in China’s surveillance machinery is Google’s Project Dragonfly, a planned search engine for the Chinese market which would have tracked its users as well as censoring their search results. The project was reportedly abandoned in December after a sharp internal and external backlash, but watchful employees have reported possible signs of continued work. Meanwhile, the company came under fire last week for its existing research activities within China. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told the Armed Services Committee last week that while Google had withdrawn from collaborations with the U.S. armed forces, it continued to “support” China’s due to the “fusion of commercial business with [the] military”. This spurred a Twitter rebuke from the U.S. Commander in Chief:
Google is helping China and their military, but not the U.S. Terrible! The good news is that they helped Crooked Hillary Clinton, and not Trump….and how did that turn out?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019
NBC News’ Max Burman reported the company’s response:
“We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare,” a spokesperson said.
Trump’s criticism came just days after Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made similar comments in testimony before Congress.
“The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,” Dunford said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” he said. “Frankly, ‘indirect’ may be not a full characterization of the way it really is, it is more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.” [Source]
Elsa B. Kania from the Center for a New American Security commented at length on the accusations:
I wanted to share a couple of quick thoughts on this story, because I also have raised concerns in the past about the research and partnerships of Google, among other companies, in China and with Chinese counterparts. https://t.co/VKp9Uy7eFB
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
To start, based on my research to date (which, I’ll caveat, draws entirely on open sources, so I don’t know what I don’t know), I have not seen explicit evidence that Google’s activities in China are directly benefiting Chinese military developments to date.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
Clearly, Google sees benefits to operating in China, e.g., access to talent and potentially a sizable market. I think decisions of this nature ought to be left to companies’ discretion, yet public debate on potential ramifications of such choices will be warranted in some cases.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
As such, I’ll note a couple of factors that may be relevant to consider. During the summer of 2018, Google appeared to be exploring closer partnership with Tsinghua University, including during the Tsinghua-Google AI Symposium that was convened in Beijing.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
At the time, Google’s AI Chief Jeff Dean, who has also joined Tsinghua’s Advisory Committee on Computer Science, highlighted his plans to promote exchanges and cooperation between Google and China. https://t.co/UnVcHyQpPd
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
At the time, I thought the extent of Tsinghua’s commitment to a national strategy for military-civil fusion should be noted as a salient consideration. (I’m not aware of the potential relationship between Google and Tsinghua having developed further since then.)
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
I’d posted this unofficial translation of a speech by Tsinghua vice president You Zheng because I think this provides a useful illustration of the university’s institutional involvement in military-civil fusion. https://t.co/PMNxUhews3
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
In his remarks, he mentioned work that Tsinghua is undertaking on behalf of China’s Central Military Commission, particularly a project that the team of academician Zhang Bo was pursuing on future human-machine cooperative (combat) operations.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
…
Tsinghua vice president You Zheng has consistently emphasized Tsinghua University “will closely integrate the national strategy of military-civilian integration and the AI superpower strategy,” including constructing a laboratory delegated to military artificial intelligence. pic.twitter.com/ZUzBeCTLPX
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
…
With regard to Google in China again, the primary partnership that Google has established so far in artificial intelligence is with Fudan University. https://t.co/8zdzH6JygJ
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
In June 2018, just a few weeks after the signing of that two-year partnership, Fudan University established the Science and Technology Research Institute, which incorporated the functions of the university’s former Military Projects R&D Office. https://t.co/CDGO9QMcI5
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
…
So, I do think it’s clear that many of China’s leading universities are actively supporting the Chinese military and defense industry. Of course, such partnerships and engagements are not unique to China, but do appear to be deepening.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
When Google (or any American company or university) chooses to engage with a Chinese counterpart, I hope that this this increased blurring of boundaries between academic and military-oriented research in China, particularly in artificial intelligence, will be a consideration.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
At the same time, I deeply believe that the openness of the American innovation ecosystem is among our greatest competitive advantages, and global partnerships in research, including, in some cases, with Chinese counterparts, can be a core element of that.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
So personally, I wouldn’t advocate that such academic collaborations be curtailed, and I think that the balancing of risk and benefit ideally ought to occur on a case-by-case basis.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
In some cases, such as when members of the Chinese military are directly involved in sensitive research, as in the incidents that @alexjoske‘s great report with @ASPI_ICPC documented, the potential for risk and harm is much more direct and self-evident. https://t.co/q0yBCgp5BV
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
The considerations in play for Google’s partnerships and research engagement in China are not as clearcut, at least in what I’ve seen so far, raising tricky questions of whether Google, as an American, but also global, company ought to take strategy and geopolitics into account.
— Elsa B. Kania (@EBKania) March 17, 2019
At The Intercept, meanwhile, George Joseph reported this week on IBM’s role in supplying “probably the first-ever video analytics surveillance […] in Asia” to Davao City in the southern Philippines amid a swathe of extra-judicial killings during now-President Rodrigo Duterte’s time as mayor and vice-mayor. The system’s alleged use against not only criminals but also local political opposition at a time when the killings were receiving vocal scrutiny from organizations such as Human Rights Watch conflicts with IBM’s professed commitment to “high standards of corporate responsibility.” The company’s role ended several years ago, however, and Chinese companies look set to step in as surveillance spreads nationwide.
In the years since the IBM program was phased out, Philippine police interest in cutting-edge surveillance infrastructure has hardly waned. National authorities are now looking to deploy real-time facial recognition across the country, in a project called “Safe Philippines,” and have considered technology from a variety of international vendors, including the Chinese telecom Huawei.
[…] The former consultant to the Philippine Army said his understanding is that the Safe Philippines installation will be modeled after Chinese facial recognition infrastructure, uniting CCTV installations and intelligence databases from security agencies across the country into one unified system. “The project aims to establish new CCTV networks and cascade them with all existing CCTV installations,” he said. “Patterned after the Chinese police state, the system is intended to tap databases from a variety of agencies of the government and integrate them with the data streams from the CCTV networks.”
In a more recent interview, the former consultant said that, given the scrutiny Huawei has drawn, the Department of the Interior and Local Government may opt for another technology equipment supplier, a claim that Densing, the Department of the Interior official, echoed in the January television interview.
Maya Wang, senior researcher on China at Human Rights Watch, said the potential adoption of a Chinese-style surveillance infrastructure, facilitated by Chinese companies, is very concerning given the “context of Duterte’s increasing abuses, drug war, and large-scale extrajudicial violence.” But Wang cautioned that the costs and expertise required for such systems are not easily replicable. The Philippine government could potentially “replicate one or some of the systems, but not all of the overlapping, multitiered mass surveillance systems seen in China,” she said. [Source]
Freedom House and others have warned of an emerging global “China Model” of digital control. Both Western companies’ activities in China and Chinese companies’ activities abroad are examined in James Griffiths’ new book, “The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet.”
