According to a recent study by British technology website Comparitech, "China is home to‚
18 of the world"s 20 most monitored cities‚ and over half the‚ surveillance cameras‚ in use globally" (Inkstone News, 27 July 2020).
Thomas Muller, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, gives some further details: "While the study"s conclusions come as no surprise and confirm what has been clear for many years now, the sheer number of cameras (over 20 million in 2017) and the speed at which new cameras are added is truly breath-taking. The largest number of cameras per thousand people currently hovers between 60 (in Beijing) and 110 (in Taiyuan). A separate report cited by Inkstone claimed that in 2018 China had one camera installed for every 4.1 people and the USA had one per 4.6 people. The report also forecast that China would have a total of 567 million cameras installed by 2021, and the USA 85 million."
Thomas Muller continues: "As the surveillance dragnet pulls tighter, Christians - particularly those belonging to unregistered churches - will find it much harder to gather even in small groups, no matter whether digitally or in the real world. As a report from 20 August 2020 by Radio Free Asia explained, even on campuses abroad, students and university staff are starting to set up
precautionary measures in the face of the Hong Kong National Security Law."
Thomas Muller adds: "It is not just the physical surveillance which is increasing and causing worry, but also the growing levels of control in the virtual sphere. As Politico reported on 1 September 2020, the Communist Party is becoming increasingly successful at indoctrinating a
young generation of Internet and social media users by simply shutting out unfiltered news and feeding in ideological content, often with a strong nationalistic tone. This comes at a certain risk, as nationalism is easily fanned, but hard to contain. The challenge is, above all, to influence a generation who up until now was exposed to a very different narrative for the whole of their lives. In a somewhat complementary report on 2 September 2020, a former Chinese censor explained to Radio Free Asia how
censorship worked and how controlling the narrative and comments was indeed the goal of the whole system."
