Should We Be Dealing With These People ...
... let alone allowing them to build our communications system?
"In China, censorship, now largely automated, has reached "unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition." — Cate Cadell, Reuters, May 26, 2019.
As in other Communist regimes, such as that of the former Soviet Union, the Communist ideology does not tolerate any competing narratives. "Religion is a source of authority, and an object of fidelity, that is greater than the state... This characteristic of religion has always been anathema to history's totalitarian despots..." — Thomas F. Farr, President of the Religious Freedom Institute, in testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, November 28, 2018.
In 2018, China had an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras, with plans for 626 million surveillance cameras by 2020. China's aim is apparently an "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" which will integrate and coordinate data from surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology, citizen ID card numbers, biometric data, license plate numbers and information about vehicle ownership, health, family planning, banking, and legal records, "unusual activity", and any other relevant data that can be gathered about citizens, such as religious practice, travels abroad, and so on, according to reports of local officials and police.
At the moment, China is in the process of fulfilling what Stalin, Hitler and Mao could only dream about: The flawless totalitarian state, powered by digital technology, where the individual has nowhere to flee from the all-seeing eye of the Communist state."