The Regime of Totalitarianism in Modern China

Nowadays, totalitarianism is commonly thought to be a terrifying regime from the past, regime that triggered numerous deaths and suffers. However, some countries continue to maintain totalitarian or authoritarian regimes. What is more surprising, the development of modern technologies facilitates total control over the public, which is majorly applied by China, one of the most advanced countries in the world. This topic is especially interesting for us as for the citizens of ex-totalitarian state, on which experience and ideas Chinese government majorly relies on. This essay makes an attempt to explore modern Chinese political course, discover its totalitarian features drawing on notes and scholarly writings of Hannah Arendt and other reputable political scientists, and figure out the perspectives of this concept.

XIX Congress of CPC (Communist Party of China) was held from 18th to the 24th of October in 2017. Congresses of the ruling Chinese party elect the leadership of CPC and, consequently, of the state for upcoming years. What is more important, it establishes the strategy of country development and defines the main aims. On the 19th congress, CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping stated that the basis for Chinese improvement is socialism with Chinese characteristics, the only correct way the state should long-term abide by.

In his speech, Xi Jinping characterized Chinese socialism as the ideology based on Marxist principles. In CPC’s opinion, it is necessary to adopt the main Marxist regulations to Chinese reality, which also used to be the target of an early Communist Party of China back in the 1920s. This adaptation is mostly determined by the idea to build a comparatively well-off society by 2020, as well accompanied by market economy, democratic politics and harmonic society.

Nevertheless, principles of democracy contradict with the certain methods chosen to build that kind of society, while some transformations make people think of digital totalitarianism.

According to The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, one of indicators of totalitarian state is an attempt of government to the absolute control over all spheres of social life. The concept of smart cities in China was established in 2008. This project was aimed at increasing the quality of life in towns, where it was implemented. Nowadays the concept is accepted by the majority of Chinese cities, and it offers such facilities as environmentally friendly transport, holograms instead of hosting staff, non-passport system due to the facial recognition system, self-contained shops and lots of other profitable benefits. All this is possible owing to the close connection between society and electronic system, created together by giant Chinese corporations (for instance Alibaba Group) and government. This mechanism works by the means of special video surveillance system, which covers the whole areas of cities. It allows to recognize every registered person in a very short time by their facial scan. Although such apparatus makes one’s life more comfortable and significantly decreases crime rate, it has another, less pleasant side.

Social Credit system

“Social stability makes it possible for us to carry out reform and development which in turn provide a solid foundation for social stability.” - this quote is taken from Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China. After providing smart cities with advanced cameras, it became possible to install the constant surveillance on all the people at the streets, which gave an opportunity to implement Social Credits. This system implies the division of people into several categories according to their social ratings, which change due to the behavior of every registered citizen, wherever possible. People’s insurable behavior includes not only law obedience, but also their food culture, cultural tastes and some kind of morally well actions, such as visiting parents, support to strangers, if needed, and else.“Using the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Zhou wrote that the nuclear engineer was “shameless” for having “not contacted his parents for 30 years.” Three days later, Zhuo was detained by local police. He was held for 10 days and fined 500 yuan, or about $79, for his public criticism of the celebrated state hero.” - Washington Post (2018). Every citizen receives a number of approximately 1000 points (depends on a region), that later vary from their actions. If the subject has a low number of points, he is devoid of some services or possibilities, for example, those, who have less than 300 points, are not able to work in governmental organizations, as well as on different kinds of responsible professions, they are unable to buy a high speed train or plane ticket and cannot take a credit in any bank.

An indispensable part of these structures is internet trading. Alibaba Group, mentioned above, invented a system of purchases, which registers all goods that a certain person buy and all information about him. Due to the app statistics, social rating is influenced as by the types of user’s purchases, as by its regularity. Moreover, it gives some privileges to buyers with higher rating. Summarizing these reforms, Chinese government created perfect conditions for monitoring humans behavior, including their tastes and leverages to it.

Friedrich and Brzezinski defined five main characteristics of totalitarianism: a dominant ideology, a monopoly party, its monopoly of information, terror against opposition and a centrally planned economy. It is clearly seen that Communist Party of China plays the role of dominant party with its ideology, constituted in The Governance of China by Xi Jinping. As any other totalitarian party, CPC tries to get a control over the information. Presently, a significant part of our social lives (especially in China) takes place in the internet. A limiting internet is, probably, the most complicated part of gaining total control due to the existence of various methods to overcome any limitations, for instance, the most popular one is VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. Anyway, CPC seeks to set up absolute internet control. The program of internet limitations is considered as web authoritarianism. “Before Xi Jinping, the internet was becoming a more vibrant political space for Chinese citizens. But today the country has the largest and most sophisticated online censorship operation in the world. Under Xi, the government has also developed new technology that has enabled it to exert far greater control over the internet. In January 2015, the government blocked many of the VPNs that citizens had used to circumvent the Great Firewall. In spring 2015, Beijing launched the Great Cannon. Unlike the Great Firewall, which has the capacity to block traffic as it enters or exits China, the Great Cannon is able to adjust and replace content as it travels around the internet. ” - “The Guardian” (2018). At the moment, at least 18000 web sites are blocked by Chinese government, including all the google services, lots of media portals and the vast majority of popular social networks. Chinese people have no choice but to use local web sites, thoroughly speculated by the government. Recently it has been possible to get an access to the internet by using VPN, but CPC declared that soon those services will be blocked, so the Communist Party’s internet monopoly will be imposed in the closest future.

Fighting criticism

One more criteria of totalitarianism according to Friedrich and Brzezinski is hidden repression of opposition against the leading party. In China, criticism is not prohibited by law, but it is, definitely, suppressed, not publicly, undercovered by different fictional reasons. “Despite barriers to access to the means of publication and the dangers inherent in publishing political news and information, members of China's “free-speech elite” are able to express concerns and criticism regarding the government with less fear of punishment than the average Chinese citizen.” - CECC. Chinese internet users, who were observed criticizing the government, are often accused of extremism, spreading radical ideas and other different reasons. Moreover, not long time ago, a special app for reportings was introduced. This app gives a user an opportunity to report a crime or violation with being awarded with money, coupons or free services. It is also used to report publishments of materials from restricted sites. Assuming those actions, China can be characterized as digital totalitarian state.

Despite the fact that centrally planned economy is familiar to totalitarian states, CPC plans to build an open market economy. At the 19th Congress, Xi Jinping announced a course of economic development based on intensive boosting economic growth by innovation and trade cooperation with other countries. He also declared that governmental control over economy will weaken.

Future perspectives

Nowadays China is, undoubtedly, a new form of totalitarian state. Chinese totalitarianism can be defined as modern and improved form of totalitarianism, which practically realizes the mission of increasing life quality, elimination of criminality and building world’s strongest economy. An advanced regime makes it almost impossible to go unnoticed after commission of a crime, so China claims to become the safest state in the world in near future. However, digital totalitarianism, or Social Credit system to be more precise, guarantees the growth of social inequality, as people in social ratings are divided into few categories with contrasting rights and opportunities. More than that, it vanishes any sorts of democratic studies. Totalitarianism usually implies dictatorship, but China is, obviously, not a usual totalitarian state, so it possess the chance to find its own way of development. As the heading of this essay proclaims, this is the new version of totalitarianism, which strives to become the regime of future states, and possibly has a chance to prove it. “By the 2050, China will become a superpower.” - Xi Jinping, 95th Anniversary of Communist Party of China (2018).