Lawfare Daily: Yaqiu Wang on Surveillance, Censorship, and Emerging Technologies in the PRC

[SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] It's recorded.

“So, but the government is able to collect information.”

What are you doing online? And then analyzing the information and make a prediction by analyzing the information and to what extent you are being a threat to the government. It's the law fair podcast.

I'm law fair, senior editor, Michael Fimer. Here today with Yachio Wong, a human rights advocate who has studied the government of China for pretty much her entire career in the United States.

I mean, Chinese AI is very powerful.

It's collecting so much data. And also processing it out, so much data. It's going to make human rights activists resistant towards Chinese government much harder. But I also want you to keep in mind

that the Chinese AI, Chinese surveillance may not as successful as it appears to be precisely because China is not a free society. We are going to be talking about the development

“of artificial intelligence and scientific and technological”

exchange between the United States and China. And what that says about both geopolitical concerns and human rights concerns. It would probably be helpful for many of our listeners who do not follow going on within China

at any real granular level to sort of understand

what the landscape of the surveillance apparatus and efforts to control thought have been like before the advent of AI. Would you be willing to sort of walk us through what that general picture looks like?

- Well, I mean, I would divide it into two aspects. One is online. The other is offline. Online, as we all know, I mean, probably Americans know too that a lot of websites

would block it in China, Facebook, X, Google, New York Times. I don't know whether law fair is being blocked or not, but it would be an honor if it's blocked. So there are a lot of information you can out of access.

But a China has its own social media platforms. People can post things and discuss with each other. And then you cannot post certain words, certain events, like the Tiananmen massacre. You cannot talk about, you know,

you can talk about cultural revolution, and the great lead forward, which are the terrible disasters done by the communist party. But there, you know, things you can talk about, there are things that you cannot talk about.

Then there's, you know, absolute forbidden topics, like, you know, sheet of peace, personal life, sheet of peace, wealth. So there are the ways, you know, the sense of what you can talk within the Chinese internet.

So that's basically the sense of how censorship works

on the Chinese internet before AI. Then there's the offline aspect, of course, there were cameras everywhere. Even before the introduction of the AI. But how the data can be processed,

and how the data can be used and synthesized. And they were much less effective and only much less, you know, massive scale than before they arrive over AI. - So let's talk about that.

“I mean, I think there was Washington Post story”

from a couple years ago, where they walked through the video in physical surveillance apparatus in Beijing. And the numbers were astounding. It was essentially, if you're anywhere within the ring roads,

you're gonna be on camera nonstop, no matter what you're doing. Is that pretty much the case? - Yes, I think, you know, there are different measurements and it's hard to say how many cameras

that they're in China in total. But I think there's a one camera for every two or three people, that's the average. So you can just imagine the level of surveillance you're under.

- Okay, so that's talking about how the government collects information in terms of people's physical comings and goings. And the internet surveillance and censorship that you mentioned, I'd imagine gives the government

some insight into what people are doing online. But everything we've discussed so far is sort of means by which the government collects information. Once they have that information,

how is it leveraged by the government? And who is it leveraged against to the extent

or in a law enforcement matter.

- Well, let's, I mean, still, let's talk about it into aspects.

“When it's online, right, you say certain things online.”

You're able to post online and there are things you're not able to post online. And the government is able to analyzing what are you saying online or when you go to a website, it's real name registration.

So obviously this is a given that whatever you say online, wherever you go, it's recorded. So but the government is able to collect the information, what are you doing online and then analyzing the information and make a prediction by analyzing the information

to what extent you are being a threat to the government. So this is online, right? Then offline, the government is doing same that have you, especially in the region of Xinjiang where the weaker population live, where you go,

who you visit, what are you doing in your daily lives or all information that have been collected by the government. And once it goes into the system, they are making a prediction in terms of what extent

you're threat to the society, to the government. And the things they are collecting in Xinjiang has gone so ridiculous.

To the point, I always use the example of,

they are collecting whether you are leaving your home from the fund or the back door. So if you're leaving, for example, if you usually leave your home from the fund or but this time you're leaving home from the back door, right?

This information goes into the system and they are using it to make a determination as part of the data they're using to make a determination whether you're a threat to the government. Because the government is thinking,

“why are you suddenly leaving your home from the back door, right?”

They're other things like, you know, they're always tracking whether you're self on has sex signals. If your self on somehow goes off track, right? Then the government starts to suspect why yourself doesn't have signal, why can't track you, right?

And then there are even things like, you know, if you buy weights from online, right? The government starts to think why you're buying weights, right? Are you trying to exercise and make yourself stronger? So you can participate in some kind of, you know,

rebel groups. So all those data they are collecting, collected into a system and then some kind of algorithm that we have no idea with a preview to our making a determination, you know, whether you're a threat to the government.

And it's not like, you know, the government to feel your threat and then the government to go in and knock your door saying, you know, what are you doing? I want to know more.

They, you know, they detain you, they sentence you based on that, a kind of a data. So it's not just, you know, they're just checking on you and they're just watching you know, they're real consequences in place,

especially in place next year. - Yeah, and one of the earlier seasons of Black Mirror, there was an episode where the protagonist was living in a world where everything she did online or socially created what I would refer to

and you will understand why I'm choosing these words, a social credit score that determined her tier of privilege and freedom within society. And it was taken as this sort of dystopian science fiction hour-long entertainment by most people who saw the show,

“but I think to those of us who follow Chinese policy,”

we realized this is just the lived reality there. - Yes, I mean, no social credit score is a real thing but it's in China right now, it's not as perfect as some people in the Western image, like every movie is being tracked.

Every movie is being factored into the government determination, the score you are and, you know, the kind of category you're being put at. But there is this thing, it's less centralized, different, municipal government have different systems

or even companies have their kind of systems. So this is for the mass populations real but it's not working that perfectly as some people imagine. But it own people, like, you know, if you're dissident, if you're human-wex activist,

if you are, you know, as I mentioned, a wager in Xinjiang. So the kind of surveillance, the collection of data of your every movie is very real. - All right, so I wanna sort of delve into something you've mentioned in your past two answers.

And that's the wager population largely living in Xinjiang. I think it's useful to talk about that

first at a very general level, simply because

I don't know that a lot of people outside the human rights

what's going on there.

There's a misconception, I think,

among large parts of the West. That China is in ethnically, racially, and religiously, as well as linguistically, homogeneous population. That everybody is on ethnicity.

Can you explain what exactly if the wager sub-population is

“and why the Chinese government views them as a threat?”

- The wager population is a Turkish and Muslim population in Northwest China. There's about 13 millions of them. I mean, they used to have their own language, culture, religion, practice.

So you can get into the details to what extent the Chinese population controlled them in history. But it's undeniable, they have their own religion, culture, and language practices.

So in the past, the Chinese government has always

have quite tight control over the population. But it seems 2016, the government really started to tighten the control of the population in response to some legitimate real terrorist attacks carried out by the population.

So in 2009, there was a massive violent attacks against the hand population in the area. They in 2012, there were attacks in the train station in claiming against the hand population. So there were sporadic terrorist attacks

against the hand population, that it was real. But then the Chinese government came in response to that had such an incredible massive, stringent crackdown on everybody in the region.

“So I think we needed to recognize both facts.”

There were some attacks.

Then the government had this completely disproportionate

reaction to the attacks. - Yeah, and now, I mean, we're looking at not just policing of the area. I mean, there have been documents smuggle out that talk about forced sterilization of the population,

separation of children from parents, crackdowns on the use of the language. I mean, there are many scholars who have referred to it as an ethnic cleansing, essentially, just not one that is progressed to the level of death camps yet.

But it's interesting. You mentioned the weagers also in the context of political dissonance. So I just before we move on to the next topic, is it fair to say that not all surveillance and oppression

that might be happening in the mainland is geared solely towards ideology, that it's a little bit broader than that? - I mean, in the Xinjiang region, they're definitely targeting literally every person,

every ethnic minority is not just the wiggers, they're other Turkic Muslim minorities too. So that is for sure. But on the hand population so far, it mostly targets people, the government considers

as, you know, dissidents, human rights activists, travel makers. But of course, the basic surveillance is still there. Again, it's to everyone, you know, as I said, if you go on anything you say, any activity you do,

the government knows who is doing it and collecting the data. So I do think, you know, you're right, we need to differentiate the minorities with the hand population and even

I'm on the hand population, they are the people, you know, the government considers as travel makers and then the regular population and the surveillance on them are different.

- And this was all in place well before the advent of what in comparison to the past decade or two, we would call more advanced and sophisticated artificial intelligence models and procedures. Can you sort of talk about how the sort of explosion

of knowledge about AI and its increased capabilities

“has changed this structure, either for better or worse?”

- Let's say, you know, online, I mean, AI has been increasingly incorporated into the censorship, right? In the past, it would just, you know, there's this word, you cannot post online.

If you post your online, the government is able to identify, you know, you are the one who is doing this, right? So now they're increasingly incorporating AI into the censorship itself, so it's more, you know, because people learned, you know,

if I can't say July, a June the 4th because that's the day the TAM and Massacre happened, I'm going to say, you know, main 34th, which does not exist, but it's a reference to June the 4th.

in order to say what they want to say,

“you know, they can reference the Xi Jinping as emperor, right?”

But then, because the introduction of AI really make that kind of circumvention hard, because the AI is able to detecting, you know, you are reference something else, right? This is one, the other really, I think AI has been increasingly

used in image detection, because people know that if I post this word, it won't pass the censorship. So how about I just write on a paper and then post the picture on a paper? So the AI is being incorporated to detect such kind of circumvention.

So online, this is getting harder. I mean, offline, of course, I mean, the camera, right? Fisher recognition, they're able to identify your face through the camera, AI is in that. So there are also voice recognition,

gate recognition, so there are ways that AI will incorporate it in that kind of surveillance that the government can use to identify specific people, even when your face is not showing. I mean, I don't know to what extent this gate recognition is working, is effective, but if you read the government

materials, if you read tech companies, materials, it's obviously there. They're saying, you know, we're able to invent this too, we're going to be able to recognize people's gate. So at least it's there.

So there's a long history of people living under censorist regimes or authoritarian governments, who is you talked about it, find ways to communicate without being explicit. There's a professor from University of Chicago

from many decades ago, Leo Strauss, who wrote about what he called the esoteric writing, where in medieval philosophers would disguise their language to make points subtly that they could it do, virtually. And as we saw in the Eastern Europe under the Soviets,

almost certain cultural items take on a political cachet, reading a certain book, patronizing a certain theater production, becomes symbols or ways of expressing solidarity with people who are fighting against the regime in question. But it sounds like what you're saying is AI has

now made the monitoring mechanism sophisticated enough that people living in China can't even do that sort of thing. I definitely think it's making it hard and hard. It's really getting hard. But I don't want to say that, you know, just make it impossible.

Let me give you a very good example during a COVID protests. I mean, China has this draconian control over the population during COVID, then people were protesting. Then people went to the street. And as I said, I'd be the censorship is so severe.

So what do they do? They held a white paper, right? A blank paper, as a way to protest.

“I mean, what the government can say, what are you protesting?”

I mean, I'm just holding a blank paper. So the censorship has gone so severe that under such circumstance, when you just hold a blank banner, a blank paper, people immediately know that you're protesting the government. The other good example is that the word, the Xi Jinping,

is so censored. Like, I mean, like, as I said earlier said, you know, you can people use to reference Xi Jinping as Emperor, right? And then they're, you know, when you the poor are that, that all got censored. So now it has gone to the point that if you just say you,

him, people immediately start to think, you know, you are reference Xi Jinping, him, the word him,

the thing people, the first reaction people had towards this unknown.

Him is Xi Jinping. So I mean, you cannot censor the word him, because if you censor the word him, the internet can't function. So in the way, you know, the government's such a draconian censorship is having effect at that to every time when you say something

that is a reference anybody, anything people immediately think, that is a criticism of the government. Okay, so we've been talking largely about what happens within Chinese borders. Is the advent of this new technology and its availability

“to the Chinese government affecting populations outside the PRC?”

I mean, I am part of the Chinese diaspora. I live in a United States, but of course, I'm still subject to the censorship of the Chinese government.

First, you know, it's harder to post anything the government doesn't allow

only Chinese social media, just like the rest of the population inside China. And the other is that my communication with people in China, you know, censored by the government, if I wanted to use social media platforms that are controlled by the Chinese government. I mean, because the Chinese government blogs, signal, WhatsApp, and other platforms,

Then that mechanism is a sense of course, you know, this is affecting the Chinese diaspora.

“Also, the Chinese government's technology affecting people around the world.”

There's this idea of smart city, basically surveillance, surveillance on the name of, you know,

better governance. It's been exported around the world, dozens of countries are importing Chinese civilized equipment to, you know, so-called, better government, better managed their cities. So, it's not just affecting the Chinese people inside, also affecting the Chinese diaspora, it's also affecting people around the world. Yeah, if I remember correctly, the first major smart city project that was planned for North America

was going to be in Canada and functionally built by Huawei. I don't exactly know whether it was in Canada, but it's true that, you know, they had the plan to ex, I mean, they have exported to dozens of, at least a dozens of about, about road initiative countries, but they had the plan to, you know, export it to Western countries and cities to,

“but then there was the reaction to, which I think is a good thing, the reaction and awareness of”

the Chinese government surveillance and it's impact on human rights, so there were resistant to that, so that was good. So, it's interesting you mentioned the Belt and Road initiative, though, because I think most people don't realize, there's also a cyberspace, I forget what the exact translation is, but there is a digital silk road initiative as well where the Chinese government is essentially doing what it did with the larger Belt and Road initiative, which is offering technology

and services relating to cyberspace and relating to advanced technologies

to third world countries at prices, competitors cannot match.

Yes, the digital silk road is part of the BI initiative, the Belt Road initiative by President

“Xi Jinping, and it's an important aspect of the BI. I think the government is increasingly”

emphasized that aspect of the BI, which is digital, and of course the government is setting all kinds of censorship and surveillance tools and no-halls to BI countries, and right, increasingly, it's the AI companies. Let's talk about that. Is most of the AI technology being used by the Chinese government being developed indiginously within China, or are they also making use of technology from other nations that, in some circumstances,

might be more advanced than say what deep sea can come up with? Well, first of all, we shouldn't

recognize a lot of the technologies are indiginously invented by a Chinese companies, and a Chinese government has invested so much money to help those companies, to develop those tools, but of course, as we saw on the news that an anthropic recently has accused the deep sea and other companies for the distillation, or basically try to extract their development to benefit deep sea development. I have no real understanding to what is standing,

that's a legit or a non-ligid stealing, or just making use of what is available. I can't really stay on that, but it's definitely part of its indiginously, part of its making use of what has been available internationally. It's interesting, and to be clear, I'm not in the expert on AI technology, but I spent a long time studying how the Chinese government works with respect to its citizens and with respect to its expatriator diaspora community, and there's a real

problem that's not getting talked about a lot, which is to a certain extent authoritarian governments, if that's the proper word, I know there's debate over when that should be applied, but governments with less protections against state sponsored surveillance or state collection of data or what have you. They have a real advantage in the development of AI. In as much as an AI system is going to be largely built on how much data it can ingest to learn from,

and the fact is in a country with less laws restricting the use of government surveillance,

nations we can name as well. They have a real advantage in terms of how much data and surveillance

take and network analysis, they can feed into their AI engines to train them. I mean, that's absolutely true. I mean, they can collect anything in China, as long as the government wants. There's no way you can say, you know, this is my privacy right. I don't want to give it to you. You can go to the court. The court is controlled by the government. So, of course, they collect anything that they want and they are collecting anything they want by, you know, you're not just

your face, your gate, your iris, your voice, anything. It's all by a metric data. You know, people, some people try to sue the government. What can you do? You can, you know, a sue in government as an actor for resistance. Of course, then you get harassed or you can possibly be detained or imprisoned. So, yes, they have so much more capability in terms of collecting data. And there's just so much less resistance towards that kind of a government's collection of data in China.

For sure, so that the government, Chinese government, definitely has an advantage. What are the rules of the government? Hello, Thomas. Can you tell us about the WM? Do you still have the best internet and against TV? From the telecom. Yeah, Freilay, come two. But, at the time, there's no connection with me.

“Here comes the WM in the house and shows all the games of the WM 26-20 life. The truth is,”

the best internet for the house. Together with Magenta TV, for non-Euro-19, it's only about the telecom. All right, so because China has so much more access to data, the tech companies in the United States very often argue that they need to be supported by the US government specifically so that China does not get a technological edge. And it's usually argued about in the context of things like defense strategy, autonomous weapons, intelligence analysis, things of that nature. But what we've

been talking about is more of a human right story so far. And to the extent that there are real human rights applications here. Do you think the US companies are engaged in those concerns or should Americans fear as much from AI technology here as some Chinese citizens do overseas? Well,

“I think we should offer AI companies. I mean, they're collecting this massive data. It's”

you know, done in a way there's no transparency and accountability so far. So in that regard, or AI companies have problems. We need to be concerned about race and then, you know, regulate those companies. But I think Chinese AI companies and American AI companies are different

in a sense. First of all, the Chinese government controls Chinese AI companies and the US government

to much less than the US government has controlled over American AI companies. Also, Chinese government has also our terror and motives, right? And America is a democracy. So in the way that, you know, there's debate, there's pushback, the American people can put on a check on the US government that people in China cannot put a check on the Chinese government. So there are different, there are similarities, we should all be concerned. But you know, I still would differentiate

the Chinese AI companies and American AI companies. And also, especially concerning the large language models that Chinese companies are exporting around the world, the way that, you know, a Chagy Beauty is everywhere around the world. But, you know, political censorship are embedded in Chinese AI companies, the way that American AI companies don't because the government isn't

telling Chagy Beauty, you know, you cannot criticize, you know, the information that a critical

of the President Trump cannot be embedded in your AI system. It's not there yet to maybe Trump wants that. But, America is still a democracy, so it's a society. So, you know, in that way, Chinese AI companies, the American AI companies are different. Yeah, and I firmly share that conviction and phrase the question provocatively, it's specifically to draw that out.

“But I think it does speak to a certain extent that like, I don't know, and tell me how you feel”

about this. I don't know that AI is a malevolent technology in and of itself. And what we are seeing from China, though, is that you cannot evaluate that claim unless you look at the general

it would not make China's government respectful of human rights. It would just make it less

“efficient at clamping down on them. Correct. I don't think, you know, AI is better than good.”

It's, you know, it's, you know, how we design the product, how we use the product, what are the gotterials to protect people from harm by using the product. So, yeah, I don't think the technology is good about it. It hinges on how we use it. Okay, I want to sort of zoom out and talk about China tech and US tech in a larger sense than just with respect to AI. There is a school thought in the United States that for geopolitical reasons and to a

lesser extent for human rights reasons, which do not get nearly enough attention, there is an necessity for the United States to maintain technological superiority to the PRC government. Now, I'm going to put my cards on the table and confess like I was very much a part of that effort on the part of the United States, and I'm still 100% supportive of that effort, but you've lived in China, you've engaged with the government

there in a way, a lot of people have not who are still free to speak. What's missing from that debate on the American side? As somebody who's lived in both countries and who has engaged with the repressive architecture in at least one of them, what do you wish more Americans were thinking

“about in this debate? Well, I think especially on the left in America, there's this”

less appreciation of just how brutal the Chinese government is, and also the lack of appreciation that the Chinese government is not just going to limit its brutality inside the country. When it can, it will export its authoritarism, human rights abuses, it is already doing it. Again, it's the population outside of China. So, in the way, at least prior to Trump administration, I so much more want America to maintain the superiority in technology and also other

areas over China, because I do see fundamentally the two governments different. America is

as always, all its problems is still broadly supportive of democracy in human rights, and one

that kind of governance model to be adopted around the world. So, I did, I do think America America's Germany played a generally a positive role, but this has been challenging by the current Trump administration, but overall, I still believe and maintain that, that, you know, it's better that America is the majority than the Chinese government is the majority, but as we are saying the evolution of U.S. governance into national actions, I don't know to what extent, you know,

this, this believe, my believe it will continue. But, you know, I still, as I see right now in the United States, there's such a resistance to Trump's governance, whether it's within the country, or it's behavior outside of country. So, I do hope that America can go back on track to be a country that is broadly supportive of human rights and democracy around the world. Yeah, so, okay, let's talk about that. Human rights and national security often get treated

as very different things. I've never agreed with that particular dichotomy, and I know it's

something you've spoken about before in other venues. Do you think there is a broad separation

“between national security and human rights advocacy, or do you see them more operating in parallel?”

Or do you think they're the same thing? Well, I do think that, you know, America, for America to support human rights in China is good for American national security. You know, you want the Chinese, the country to be a stable country that is, you know, democratic human rights respecting. So, it facilitates, you know, a peaceful relationship with the United States is facilitates international exchange for it facilitates business. So, it's good for China to be a human rights

respecting country. So, you can have a normal relationship with China. And, you know,

that kind of repression inside the country is China often times become more aggressive around the world. As we are seeing, right? I mean, China has become more impressive in the past 10 years. Also, become more aggressive in the past 10 years. So, I do think it is too very much related. So, all right. So, let's put that in the context of everything we've been discussing earlier.

There was a belief beginning largely with the first Bush administration

and continuing very much into the Clinton administration that if the United States was able to bring, able to sort of help shepherd an era of economic liberalism in the PRC, that a political liberalism would inexorably follow.

“I think it's fair to say that it has not worked out that way so far.”

I agree. It's unfortunate. And I think people had that kind of expectation. Some of them, I think, were rationalization, right? You wanted a lot of American businesses,

wanted to do business with China because it's good to make money, right? Then they start to

rationalize, you know, by engaging with China, we're going to liberalize the country to make China more like America. So, there were genuine belief that it was the right way to go. But there, I think, were also rationalization for money making. But unfortunately, didn't it happen? That idea that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization has pretty much at least over the past 35 years or so proven not to be true.

But now we get a similar argument that technological cooperation and scientific cooperation

“are the only way that humanity is a whole can progress because it's very common to hear”

that science doesn't operate within geographical boundaries. We build up on the steps that others have taken. We see where their experiments and hypotheses ended. We start from there. We incrementally move forward until eventually we get a great leap. Sorry, I should have used a different phrase, talking about Chinese politics and great leap. But you understand what I'm saying. And I'm going to phrase this in a very purposefully controversial way that I know a lot of people are going to

disagree with. But does China's decision not to liberalize politically but to actually become more reactionary as it became more of an economic powerhouse and more integrated into the world economy indicate that we should have similar suspicions or not suspicions but indicate that we should have a reluctance to integrate Chinese government-sponsored research

“into the larger scientific community for the same fear. I think engaging this topic for a while,”

I feel the devil is in the details. I do think by integrating the Chinese scientific world into the international scientific world, there's just so much collaboration going on. A lot of us was used by the Chinese government for malicious purposes. So, I mean, in a government who was sent, so all that's talent, project, like, charity, why is that the right thing? Dolls and talents program, yes. Yes. I mean, you know,

people have a collaboration with American universities on the name of some kind of a four, four, let's say a public good, but the government does use the same, the results of the collaboration for military purposes, for example. So, there's a large scale aspenage. You probably know more than I do because you were in the US government, so you had information I don't. So, that was a legitimate concern. But oftentimes, collaboration are really just for public good,

especially basic research. My concern is always that the government, the US government needs to know

what kind of collaboration can be used by the Chinese government in four malicious purposes. And what kind of a collaboration is actually good and just for public, you know, for the public good, for the advancement of science per se. So, it really requires expertise within the United States government to be able to differentiate differences and, you know, make a good judgment. Yeah, there's an anecdote I tried to tell as many people as possible when I was supervising

think of a dozen famous cases where there was Chinese government sponsored theft of US technology.

“But there's a danger to a certain extent in focusing on that. Because the story they don't know”

is about the rocket scientist who was tenured at California Institute of Technology, who got so fed up with the suspicion and racism of the US government in assuming he was going to

do something wrong, which he never did and never had, that he was eventually driven from the United

States sort of softly persecuted until he moved back to China and then developed their space program. So, I just want to echo your statement that you do need smart people in the US government who are able to differentiate between the sort of sharing we should be encouraging and the environment. We should be fostering to welcome foreign scientists, but who also know that not everybody has the

“pureest of intentions. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that was already my concern, even before the”

Trump administration, right now my concern has become more grave because I know many talented people inside a government just can't stand their job anymore. So they lacked. So no, I'm sure it's even the, it's even a worst situation in their ability to differentiate what is legit and what is not legit. And also, you know, I have friends, Chinese friends, who are scientists, who work in US labs, US universities. I mean, they're, it's real that the pressure they are facing

from the US government side, which the pressure they are feeling is from the administrations

in their university in their lab, but ultimately, it's from the US government. It makes them uncomfortable.

“They're automatically being suspected as a, you know, a spy. In fact, you know, they wanted to come”

to the US because it's a better country. It's a country that they can do real science in the environment that is more transparent to, you know, that actually value their talent. And they want to be in the US. They wanted to live in the US. They wanted their children to group in the US because it's a better system because it's a democracy. It's a human rights respecting country and they wanted to be part of it. But now they feel, you know, just by being

virtually Chinese, I'm being a suspect. So, you know, people do tell me that, you know, like, I came here because it's a better country because I want it to be an American. But now I just feel feeling that, you know, American doesn't want, does not want me. And then people feel hurt. And you know, how do they going to react to that? Maybe some of them are going back to China, a lot, you know, not some. You know, a lot of them are going back to China because they don't feel

welcome here. And then, of course, the Chinese government is very attuned to this. And they are doing more to welcome people to go back to the talents to go back to China. So, I want to tie this back to AI before we conclude. And it's effect on not just the US China rivalry, but also it's effect on the Chinese populace, both within the country and within the diaspora. If you were an American AI company and you're working on international ventures, you're really an American

tech company of any sort. Your Apple, your Microsoft, your Open AI, you know, there's a million

different companies we can think of. And you have a lot of conflicting feelings about China as a market, as a partner, as a rival nation, what have you? Knowing what you know about how the Chinese government leverages technology for, as you called it, malevolent ends, what do you wish American tech companies would think about before they approach China as a market or a partner or a rival that might not occur to them? You know, I feel America has been so successful as a country. American company

has been so successful, has so much to do with America as a democracy, as a human rights respecting country, as a society that people can speak freely without repercussion, without fear, right? So, America has been able to thrive as a result of this system. So, they need to keep that in mind.

rival, keep in mind that I'm good, because I was born in a system that was open, transparent,

“human rights respecting and democratic. So, you need to have confidence that promoting this is good,”

that it is in your advantage, right? So, coming from this place of that I want this is good for me, this is why I'm successful and I want it to be brought around the world. It should be the, you know, the fundamentals of how an American company should conduct itself, whether it's, you know,

seeing China as a collaborator or China as a rivalry. Granted, I mean, Chinese AI is very powerful,

it's collecting so much data and also processing so much data. It's going to make human rights activists resistant towards Chinese government much harder, but I also want you to keep in mind

“that the Chinese AI Chinese surveillance may not as successful as it appears to be precisely because”

China is not a free society. You know, in the US, as far as I know in New York City there are a lot of surveillance, but there are, you know, civil society groups criticizing the surveillance of not being successful. I'm sure that in China it's happening, but there's no way that people can tell you the story, you know, you cannot read a story on a Chinese internet from Chinese media, saying, you know, the government's surveillance camera is not working for XYZ reasons. And the

reason I can say that is because I have, you know, family members and friends in China, especially during the COVID and they were telling me, you know, this is the way I circumvented the health code. So the government didn't know that I actually went to that shop, actually I went to that city, which is prohibited at that time. So there are ways that the citizens were doing all kinds of things to circumvent to the surveillance and they are also finding out to the

government surveillance who's not working as it claims, but they are not channeling it publicly because of censorship. So we just don't know to what extent, you know, it is working as the government claims are to work. So when we talk about surveillance and AI, we need, in China, we need to keep that in mind, you know, that works not in favor of the Chinese government. I mean,

the government is losing critical information in terms of how effective it's, you know,

control of it a population is. And I think we will leave it there. Yachio Wang, thank you very much for joining us today. Let's be a pleasure from our end. Thank you so much.

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