"Constructing a Culture of Honesty and Integrity": The Evolution of China's Han-centric Surveillance System

Abstract

Surveillance has become the dominant organizing force of the modern era. A once isolated and limited practice, surveillance now pervades every facet of urban existence in practically all corners of the globe. Contemporary surveillance of the type facilitated by information and communication technologies embodies the logical outcome of a positivist rationality that seeks to reduce all life phenomena to calculation and quantifiable management. The quest for security, risk management, administrative efficiency, and consumer convenience continues to motivate the global expansion of surveillance and facilitates the creation of new types of technologies and regimes. However, as new global actors seek to deploy their own advanced digitized systems, attention must be focused on the unique socio-cultural background against which both overt and covert forms of surveillance are being formulated.