UK-published technology report says products sold by US tech firms help China’s surveillance state

The report, entitled China’s Surveillance State: A Global Project, was authored by two doctoral degree candidates with a grant from Top10VPN.com
Report accuses US tech giants Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Cisco of selling products to China that can be used in their surveillance state

US-China tech war

Masha Borak

Published: 12:00pm, 6 Aug 2021

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A UK-based website has published a report that says US companies including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Cisco are selling products to facilitate “China’s surveillance state”, highlighting the current sensitivity and scrutiny of commercial and technological flows between the US and China.

The report, entitled China’s Surveillance State: A Global Project, was authored by two doctoral degree candidates Valentin Weber and Vasilis Ververis with a grant from Top10VPN.com, a platform that focuses on censorship circumvention tools, privacy, and digital rights and which is part of UK-based PrivacyCo.

The sale of US technology equipment to China remains legal apart from US-origin tech that has been placed on the US Commerce Department’s trade blacklists. Meanwhile, China promised in its World Trade Organization entry agreement that it would treat domestic and foreign businesses equally in government procurement processes.

However, China has been trying to reduce the use of foreign products in sensitive systems, particularly after US whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed the secretive PRISM plan by the US National Security Agency in 2013. At the same time, US technology firms are coming under greater pressure to examine whether any products sold to China are later involved in China’s surveillance and state infrastructure.

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The report listed a case where US tech firm Intel sold core processors to an airport in Urumqi, capital city of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of China, an area in which Washington has accused Beijing of committing genocide against Uygur minorities. The Chinese government has vehemently denied these allegations.

Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, IBM and Cisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report’s findings.

Airports across China are using servers powered by Intel core processors. The Xiaoshan airport in Hangzhou, for example, made very specific requirements in a 2020 procurement document that a particular server must be powered by an Intel i5-900 processor.

Global technology companies are continuing to adapt to growing hostility between Beijing and Washington, navigating a minefield of ever-changing government policy positions, associated regulations and the public relations nightmare of being accused of being complicit in potential human rights abuses.

The technology report also examined the growing overseas reach of Chinese tech companies, finding that at least 14 Chinese companies involved in China’s Golden Shield Project – an upgrade of the country’s policing and surveillance systems – operate internationally.