Michael Caster @michaelcaster

Excited to share our new book, "Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Public Management in China", has just been published online @CUP_PoliSci . Available for free download in the next two weeks. We study outsourcing of digital surveillance by the Chinese Party-state to private enterprises and for-profit subsidiaries of state-owned corporations. We ask why, how, and what are the implications of outsourcing of digital surveillance to monitor and moderate online public discourse. An extension of my earlier research on OUTSOURCING REPRESSION to the digital realm. "The digital age has afforded autocrats new technologies of control, allowing them to co-opt, pre-empt and repress dissent. But, what if they lack the technical capacity to access digital tools of control? In what ways have digital technologies altered the way autocrats conduct statecraft? Based on an analysis of thousands of public procurement documents, and a dozen elite interviews with various stakeholders, we found that the Chinese state has outsourced various functions of online surveillance to private and for-profit arms of state-owned corporations. We found that outsourcing surveillance is intended to augment state technical capacity to moderate and fine-tune the conduct of digital repression. Outsourcing digital repression opens a Pandora's box of state-business collaborations. This Element contributes to the literature on outsourcing repression, state‒business relations, and conduct of digital statecraft." @munkschool @TorontoSRI @UofTArtSci cambridge.org/core/elements/…

Drawing is not only about expressing an opinion. Sometimes it means slowing down. Looking more carefully. Making visible the nuances in a world that seems willing to accept only black or white. channeldraw.org/2026/02/16/dra…

NEW: The Pentagon accused some of China’s biggest companies including Alibaba, Baidu and BYD of supporting the Chinese military, doubling down on an earlier decision to label crown jewels of the country’s corporate world as threats to US national security: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Beijing is officially weaponizing artificial intelligence to punish citizens for thoughts they have not even voiced yet. A bombshell New York Times report has unmasked a terrifying evolution in digital tyranny, detailing the shift from punishing dissent to predicting it before it happens. Analyzed by researchers at Vanderbilt University, a massive data leak from the Beijing-based tech firm Geedge Networks reveals that China is actively developing AI-driven predictive surveillance to neutralize political risks. The company has deep ties to Fang Binxing, the infamous father of China's Great Firewall, and is moving far beyond passive internet censorship into the realm of preemptive control. The leaked documents show that these new systems utilize Large Language Models to synthesize data at scale. By aggregating real-time internet browsing histories, tracking physical movements via cell tower records, and mapping out social media connections, the AI builds comprehensive citizen profiles. It then generates political risk scores to flag individuals who might become critics of the government, allowing the state to intervene based entirely on inferred intent rather than actual actions. This dystopian toolkit is already being exported as a commercialized service to authoritarian regimes aligned with Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. The leak exposed that Geedge’s flagship product, which functions as the Great Firewall in a box, was deployed by the military junta in Myanmar to locate pro-democracy activists, block social media, and trigger regional internet blackouts that led to targeted arrests. Similar mass surveillance deployments capable of deep packet inspection and tracking citizen reputation scores have been uncovered in Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Fortunately, the leaked files also reveal a critical vulnerability in Beijing's digital panopticon. United States export controls on advanced semiconductors have successfully starved Geedge of the high-end computing power required to scale these predictive AI models. Forced to pivot to less efficient tech due to chip shortages, their progress has been significantly slowed. This serves as a stark reminder to Western policymakers that maintaining tight semiconductor sanctions is the primary line of defense keeping this predictive surveillance grid from expanding globally. #UnveiledChina #PredictiveSurveillance #DigitalAuthoritarianism #GeedgeNetworks #GreatFirewall #Geopolitics #AICensorship #NationalSecurity

Great profile of the prolific and fascinating Chinese social media poster/news source - Teacher Li (@whyyoutouzhele), by @LiYuan6👇 “He’s like the loudspeaker through which all the other voices” — Chinese voices — “come out into the world.” - @LauraHarth nytimes.com/2026/06/01/bus…

“Teacher Li” has become one of the most prominent targets of China’s #transnationalrepression campaign. Yet he continues documenting dissent, amplifying censored voices, and pushing back against authoritarian intimidation. Freedom House is proud to collaborate with Li Ying through the China Dissent Monitor to better inform the public about protest in China. Read this profile of Li Ying in @nytimes from @LiYuan6: nytimes.com/2026/06/01/bus…

Sharing a new paper on an understudied tool used by China's Ministry of Public Security to expand its global reach: formal law enforcement & security cooperation agreements. China has signed at least 205 of these since 2006: 170 bilateral, 35 multilateral. 1/n

Canada *still* not moving to pass the completed trade deal it finalized with Taiwan more than a year ago, presumably to avoid upsetting China. More background in this piece by @tchau01 from last October: asia.nikkei.com/economy/trade/…

Jacob Mantle @jacobmantle

4 weeks ago

It's clear the Liberals are purposefully delaying the Canada-Taiwan trade framework under pressure from China. I asked Taiwan's representatives today — their response: the agreement is finished and 'the ball's in Canada's court.'

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"India's wariness...reflects a broader concern: that Beijing seeks a unipolar Asia where it gets to set the terms." - @tanvi_madan, @BrookingsChina

Opinion: Police co-operation with China comes without guardrails theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…

中国跨国镇压又添新证，保护卫士中国事务主任 Laura Harth 今天公开了一批针对她本人的 AI 生成色情伪图，并点名背后的操作者：与中国公安系统关联的境外影响力网络 Spamouflage。 这不是孤立事件。2022 年 9 月，保护卫士发布首份报告，揭露中国在 50 多个国家秘密设立的 100 多个"海外警察站"。针对该机构及其工作人员的抹黑行动，从同月开始，持续至今四年未停。指控的"罪名"从与三大洲政客的桃色绯闻、贪污、为外国情报机构工作，到恐怖主义，甚至非法狩猎野生动物，无所不包。 OpenAI 早在 2026 年 2 月已点名保护卫士是"中国工业化跨国镇压"的目标，操作账号与中国执法部门关联，同一网络也被用于抹黑日本首相高市早苗。Meta 将 Spamouflage 定性为全球最大隐蔽影响力行动，溯源至中国公安。美国司法部已就此起诉中国公安部 40 名官员。欧盟对外行动署、微软、Graphika、NewsGuard、澳大利亚战略政策研究所、自由之家、美国国务院均已具名记录这场行动。 民主国家已把深度伪造色情内容当作严肃问题立法应对：美国《Take It Down Act》、澳大利亚《刑法修正案》、英国、法国、韩国均已入罪。意大利总理梅洛尼本人遭深伪攻击后也推动了立法。但法律惩处的是制作者和传播者，而真正的源头：中国公安系统，至今未付任何代价，下一批伪造内容随时可以出炉。 Harth 选择把这些图公开，正是拒绝沉默。她指出：西方政府手里有归因、有报告、有自己机构出具的证据，缺的从来不是材料，而是政治意志。法国今年未能延续 G7 在反跨国镇压议题上的势头；2027 年轮值主席国意大利，是 G7 中唯一尚未启动相关讨论的国家，尽管该国今年初刚以国家安全为由驱逐了八名中国公民。 跨国镇压不只是异见人士的个人遭遇，更是一个政权对他国主权和公民安全的系统性侵犯。Harth 的呼吁很直接：提高跨国镇压这一议题的优先级！ 原文链接👇 safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/fake-p…

🔔New .@CHRDnet report documents children’s rights and labor rights violations in mandatory vocational school internships and hiring children under 16 to work across 11 provinces between 2019 and 2025. The findings are alarming 🆘 ! 👉 nchrd.org/2026/05/china-…

EXCLUSIVE: How the track foreigners in China - We got rare access to demo system developed by the Ministry of Public Security in China for the prefecture of Zhangjiakou, to track and surveil foreigners visiting or being residents ( actually it applies to most nationals as well, but in this case it seems to be aimed at foreigners ). It is officially known as "Dynamic control platform for overseas personnel". 1/12

Absolutely not surprising but a limited leak of a Chinese local surveillance platform drawing off an apparently large national one has a special drop down for tracking for tracking foreign journalists in China… including me. @NetAskari found the data open.substack.com/pub/netaskari/…

Demo of a Chinese 🇨🇳 video surveillance portal that purports to track all foreign visitors, including journalists, integrating video feeds w other data (e.g., pictures from ski passes) to conduct mass surveillance & social network analysis 👇 netaskari.substack.com/p/sharp-eyes-h…

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Fareed Zakaria has lost it in this latest oped. Abandoning democratic Taiwan as a bargaining chip with authoritarian China is not pragmatism! Zakaria also sprinkles in a little Uyghur genocide denialism for good measure.

Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria

a month ago

President Trump’s foreign policy in his second term has been reckless, chaotic and deeply destabilizing. But he might well turn out to have the right instincts — and perhaps even the right policy — in one crucial arena: the U.S.-China relationship. My latest column:

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Pleased to see that Anthropic's new policy paper on China cites the @ASPI_CTS China team's research as foundational evidence for their position. Links to Anthropic's paper and our research below

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I’m in Taipei this week examining how shifting US-China relations are reshaping Taiwan’s business environment and the broader regional economy. I’ll be publishing takeaways for companies assessing supply chains, investment risk, and cross-border partnerships through @nuoraglobal's newsletter. Subscribe to receive the full report. nuoraglobaladvisors.substack.com

Learn more about how China's digital authoritarianism is impacting Iran in our latest Democracy's Horizons piece with @michaelcaster: thinkdemocracy.substack.com/p/autocrats-ar…

NEW: If you or others around you have been the target of the CCP’s illegal transnational repression activities, take part in this global survey: let’s come together to collect the evidence to end the CCP’s climate of fear! Thx @whyyoutouzhele for this most precious collab! 🤜🤛

李老师不是你老师 @whyyoutouzhele

a month ago

海外黑手档.com 长期以来，中共当局通过跨国镇压，将它在中国境内的恐惧统治延伸到海外。 今年3月，意大利以国家安全理由驱逐8名涉嫌参与对李老师进行跨国镇压的中国公民。这是欧洲国家在应对中共跨国镇压问题上的一次重要行动。

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