CHINA: FIRSTFRUITS OF AN ANTICHRIST SURVEILLANCE GOVERNMENT
BY DAVID CLOUD
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
(Friday Church
News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “China Mandates
Surveillance as Religious Persecution Rises,” an interview with Bob Fu, The Stream,
Nov. 14, 2018: “President Xi Jinping considers Christians one of the
greatest threats to his power. Underground churches are listed as one of
the ‘new black five’ national security threats in China. It’s new under
this president for churches to be classified as a national security
threat. The government-sanctioned churches that are allowed
to exist right now have unique restrictions. Each church has to install
a facial-recognition camera in front of the pulpit. The purpose is to
identify certain people in the congregation. Many classes of people are
banned from entering into any church. These include young people under
18 years old, college students, doctors or medical professionals, civil
servants, military members and educators. If they’re found, immediately
their boss or a government official will be speaking with them. These
are huge ramifications right now. It really began after President Xi
Jinping took office in 2012. He is now nicknamed ‘Emperor Xi’ since he
successfully removed his term limits in March of this year. When he took
power, the mass forced demolition of crosses started in Zhejiang
province. That area is called the Jerusalem of China. ... These are
government-sanctioned churches. The house churches do not have buildings
or a cross. ... On February 1 of this year, a new law called
‘Regulations on the Administration of Religious Affairs’ took effect.
Things have become dramatically even worse. Bible-burning campaigns are
happening across China. ... China is perhaps the world’s most
sophisticated surveillance police state. It’s beyond anything the U.S.
does. Some of these efforts are aided by greedy American companies. ...
Apple decided to remove all virtual private networks from Apple Stores
across China. They have a segregated Chinese version of the Apple
iCloud. Supposedly this China iCloud is still part of Apple, offering
iTunes content. But it’s totally controlled by the Chinese government.
Cisco and Google are similar. China has the most cameras in the whole
world, on every street corner. These facial recognition cameras are part
of their dynamic monitoring system. They can follow you anywhere. If
you drive a car, they can quickly track your license plate. If you buy a
train or bus ticket, as soon as you swipe your card, you are
classified. I noted how China has five categories of dangerous people.
Now China is also building the world’s largest so-called ‘social credit’
system. If you get a traffic ticket, then one point of morality is
deducted. If you are found in the underground church, your social score
is essentially zero. You lose your right to buy airplane tickets. Last
week, I was in South Korea attending a house church leadership
conference. But 240 out of 300 church leaders were blocked in Chinese
airports, even including Hong Kong, and declared as national security
threats. They were not allowed to board the flight when they checked in
to Customs.”BEIJING DEBUTS PLAN TO MONITOR BEHAVIOR OF EVERY RESIDENT
(Friday
Church News Notes, November 30, 2018, www.wayoflife.org,
fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from
“Beijing Debuts,” Breitbart.com, Nov. 23, 2018: “Beijing plans to reward
and punish its residents based on data that will be collected from
various departments monitoring citizens’ social behavior, according to a
detailed ‘action plan’ posted on Monday to the city’s municipal
website. By
the beginning of 2020, the announcement declares, China’s capital city
will have all residents officially locked into the permanent
surveillance program, part of a broader effort to have every Chinese
citizen rated on a ‘social credit system’ decreeing what public services
a person can use based on their obedience to laws and loyalty to the
communist regime. The
government will use the data collected to assess citizens’ behavior to
decide if an individual is law-abiding and ‘trustworthy’ to the
Communist Party. Residents
who behave properly in the eyes of the Chinese government will receive
high credit scores, while residents who misbehave will receive low
scores, causing them to lead more difficult lives. ‘Efforts
will be made to build a market supervision mechanism with corporate
credit as the core,’ states Beijing’s municipal website, adding that it
will explore the implementation of what it calls ‘the personal integrity
project,’ which will utilize residents’ credit scores for ‘market
access, public services, tourism,’ and ‘fields such as entrepreneurship
and job hunting.’ Higher
scores can also open the ‘green channel,’ which will expedite
residents’ applications for higher quality ‘education and medical
resources.’ ‘Those
who violate the law and lose trust will pay a heavy price,’ adds the
government website, stating that it will ‘improve the blacklist system’
and that residents will find themselves ‘limited everywhere, and
difficult to move’ if they are deemed untrustworthy by the Communists in
control.”