Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention and surveillance in China, internal documents show
An Associated Press investigation reveals how U.S. technology companies played a central role in building China’s vast surveillance state, which now traps citizens like the Yang family—farmers whose land was seized and who are relentlessly monitored, beaten, and detained for petitioning the government. Over decades, American firms including IBM, Dell, Cisco, Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle, and others sold billions of dollars’ worth of hardware, software, and services that powered China’s “Golden Shield” and other predictive policing systems, enabling mass repression of dissidents, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and ordinary petitioners. These technologies, initially marketed as tools for stability and counterterrorism, evolved into mechanisms of total control—tracking movements, monitoring communications, and flagging people for detention based on arbitrary risk scores. Although U.S. companies insist they complied with export laws, leaked documents, marketing materials, and contracts show they pitched products directly for surveillance and censorship. Even after sanctions slowed sales post-2019, American technology remains embedded in China’s policing infrastructure, raising global concerns as similar tools spread worldwide, potentially threatening freedoms far beyond China.