The detention camps where the Chinese government has interned more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs serves a dual purpose. It not only oppresses what the Chinese government considers a troublesome minority on its western frontier but also serves as a lab for the development of surveillance technology by Chinese companies. China must export these tools as part of its plan to transform its economy into a world leader in technological development.
"It's not unusual that colonies on the periphery become laboratories of surveillance and control that are then applied elsewhere," Philip Thai, a historian of modern China at Northeastern University, said. "They're doing a lot of testing in an area that is remote and against a people who are not as politically organized or connected... To go up the value chain, China has to own the tech that is the tech of the future, so AI, surveillance. China believes fields like this could help it climb the value chain so it can reap the benefit from exporting these technologies instead of making the lower end and having foreign companies captures most of the gains...."
The push to develop this kind of technology has become more imperative as the Chinese economy has slowed in recent years. Sectors like manufacturing and heavy industry that used to drive its economy are declining and laden with debt, so the government needs new sources of growth to continue to power the Chinese economic miracle... If we're going to acknowledge what's happening in Xinjiang, we have to acknowledge it's a testing ground for those kinds of weapons and it's China's aim to enrich itself by unleashing them on the world.
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