The China Bubble

Let me start off by saying that what happened in Paris yesterday is one of those events like 9/11 that defy an adequate description.  All that we can do is let all those affected know that our thoughts and prayers are with them as they make sense of these barbaric and senseless attacks.  What’s strange sitting here in China in one of the country’s largest cities is the lack of any outward awareness that the attacks had taken place.  Now I did not go to the newsstand outside my apartment complex and look at the headlines, nor did I check out CCTV news to see if it was being discussed on television, but I also did not notice any more of a police presence in the streets or in public spaces.  If you look at today’s Global Times, the English-language newspaper published by the government’s People’s Daily, you’ll see mention of the Paris attacks, but it shares billing with a landslide in eastern China.  I guess when you already live in something of a police state, there isn’t much of a need for additional police on the streets since surveillance is already undertaken on such a massive scale.  Even the control center in our school here probably rivals what’s in place at secondary airports around the world.  The number of screens for one building was astonishing and we’re merely talking about keeping tabs on students.  While we take the safety of our students seriously, I think this high-tech room came part and parcel with the building in which we happen to have our school, which was built by our Chinese partner here.  My point in all of this is that China is already theoretically well-policed with cameras everywhere, the Internet scoured for unsavory posts by an army of censors, and everyone registered with the government so that their whereabouts are always known.  I say theoretically because its surveillance system has not been tested in ways like Paris, Madrid, or New York have been tested.  When there is an attack in Xinjiang allegedly perpetrated by Muslims frustrated with Chinese rule, we don’t actually know how the government goes about finding its suspects because there is never mention of a video capturing the incident or interception of cell phone or internet chatter about planning the attacks.  I guess I wonder how robust China’s security apparatus really is and how much of it is mere bluster with the government just creating suspects to fit a convenient narrative.  My only experience with surveillance in China was when I was living in Guangzhou and someone wiped out my bank account by obtaining my ATM password.  I roughly knew the date and time when this happened, so I went back to the bank figuring that with the 20 cameras in the tiny ATM vestibule, they’d be able to find the perpetrator.  Guess what the bank told me?  Those cameras actually didn’t work, but were just for show to deter criminals.  It was one of those moments where I just shook my head and only later started wondering how many of the other cameras around the city were just for show.  Even today when I see a camera mounted on a street light or outside of store, I wonder if it actually works.   Aside from the cameras at our school, without proof, I am not that sure.  So I am currently in a police state and theoretically I should be safe here, but China is relatively untested when it comes to terrorism outside of attacks from Tibetans and Uighurs protesting Chinese rule. As China continues to rise and seeks to play a bigger role on the global stage, it’s going to get entangled in countries far from home and one can only wonder what happens then.  Hopefully we defeat this scourge of terrorism before anyone here has to find out.  Yet it’s odd being here in what I call the China bubble when a tragedy occurs like what went down in Paris.  Without the Internet and ties to my friends and family back home, I would be hard-pressed to find out anything from my immediate surroundings about what’s going on in the world at large.  It’s frightening sometimes to think about how easy it is to render a population unaware.  Even in the States where people don’t always pay attention to the news, anyone in a major urban area would notice an increased police presence.  China seems to sometimes exist as if it’s cut off from what goes on outside its borders.