Reports have surfaced that China is sparing no tactics in asserting its dominance in the China-occupied Tibet region. This comes at a time when the surveillance tactics employed by Chinese Communist Party in that region are almost choking the lives of local Tibetans, Tibet Rights Collective reported.
Citing reports from Human Rights Watch and the Citizen Lab in September this year the Tibet Rights Collective also claimed that CCP has been involved in an extensive collection of DNA samples. These samples are gathered from locals and children attending kindergarten.
As per a report published in December 2020 by the Tibetan municipality of Qinghai in China. The samples of all boys between the age of five and 17 were gathered from the area. It must also be noted that a person’s DNA is extremely vital information. As it helps the holder of the DNA to identify a person permanently, know their medical records and even derive information about their relatives and family members. And that too without the slightest possibility of forged identity.
The Chinese authorities have made security even tighter in the China-occupied Tibet region, especially after the protests that broke out demanding the return of the Dalai Lama.
According to Tibet Rights Collective, the CCP asks the local government to report all political crimes, profile DNA reports and listen to personal phone conversations. The use of We Chat is banned and 5G has been installed to process, access and gather data from the area more efficiently. The locals even have to bear limits on movements as there are on where these people can go. This is the pattern that China is following to not only assert political or military but also social dominance over the area.
The tapping of personal phone conversations of local Tibetans makes having a conversation on topics that are deemed sensitive to the CCP tough. There even are cases in which Chinese authorities have been detaining people just for talking to people who have settled abroad or living in exile, reported Tibet Rights Collective citing a report from the Central Tibetan Administration.
This area has been flooded by cameras that are enabled with facial-recognition technology. Cameras. Cameras have also been installed on Qinghai-Tibet Railway which is the highest elevated railway track around 4500 mts above sea level. This grid of camera network is being created with the help of HikVision which is a Chinese government-owned establishment and the largest producer of video surveillance products, reported Tibet Rights Collective citing a Free Tibet report.
The CCP has applied “Grid Management” and “Double-Linked Household” as forms of mass surveillance. In the Grid Management system entire neighbourhoods have been divided into small groups. As small as five to ten houses and a team of at least five security and administrative staff are being allotted to such grids each with a designated grid captain. This is to stop any possible unrest at the very grass root level and was introduced in 2007. And in the Double-Linked Household system which started in 2012, the grid system was further intensified thereby making block-level surveillance offices.
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People in Tibet villages are divided into groups of locals that are made volunteers to support even further surveillance at the village level. There is the use of survey drones are being employed to closely monitor the movement of locals as they may cross the border from the Himalayan mountains from China-occupied Tibet to Nepal or India.
The nomads of Tibet who are a significant part of the Tibetan culture are forced into concrete settlements where it is easier for authorities to control their movements and further maintain their surveillance on Tibet locals.
The Tibet Rights Collective further reported citing a report from Radio Free Asia that there are members of surveillance units posted in monasteries by the Chinese government which is making the lives of monks difficult. And cameras have also been installed to maintain 24-hour watch even the monks. Similarly, the CCP has been interfering with local publications stopping them to publish any information that is considered sensitive by the CCP and their masters.
The surveillance of China does not stop here as there are also reports that China has established Chinese police-run service centres across the world that are made purposely to help Chinese citizens update their documents. There are at least 54 of these stations across the world spread across five continents. Reportedly, there are 36 such stations in Europe, 5 in South America, 5 in Asia, 4 in North America, and 3 in Africa. All such attempts of China come at a time when it is being blamed for conspiring in all the wrong ways possible and has been supporting Pakistan which has already proven to be associated with terrorism.
