Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

China is getting smarter - but at what cost?

Thirty years ago, Shenzhen was a fishing village, surrounded by paddy fields.

Then came a plan to build China's first special economic zone to allow foreign investments, and out of the quiet rural landscape grew private businesses and factories which over time transformed into a city.

Now Shenzhen, with a population of 12 million, is just one part of a huge urbanised area running down the Pearl River Delta.

China's smart cities ambitions are among the grandest in the world. But there are questions about whether their surveillance technologies will improve the quality of inhabitants' lives or just be used to keep a closer eye on them.


Clean city

By 2050, about 292 million more Chinese people will live in cities. Already more than 58% of the population are urban dwellers, compared to just 18% in 1980.

According to the authorities, there are 662 Chinese cities, including more than 160 with a million people or more.

At the Smart Cities Expo in Barcelona recently, Shenzhen had one of biggest exhibits.

Jiang Wei Dong, the general manager of the local delegation told the BBC what technologies are powering the city.

They are, he said, "seriously focused on pollution".

"Compared to other cities, Shenzhen is clean," he added.

The city is the first in China to ensure that all buses and taxis on its roads are electric, he explained.

Alongside smarter transportation, there is a new smart healthcare system, which makes sure that when anyone comes to the city from a faraway province their health records are immediately accessible.

But when asked about security systems, his response was less enthusiastic.

"We are only familiar with traffic. For the citizens of Shenzhen there is no monitoring," he said.

But at a separate event in the city itself, the public are being challenged to consider the speed at which surveillance tech is being rolled out.

Shenzhen's Futian station is hosting Eyes of the City - an exhibition which poses the question: "What happens to people and the urban landscape when the sensor-imbued city is able to gaze back?"

Among the works on show are a facial recognition system that visitors can opt out of by wearing a special mask, and displays that look back at ticket holders, analysing their emotional responses.

"One of the main objectives of the Eyes of the City exhibition is to encourage visitors to take a stance, shunning the dangerous option of neutrality," said the curator Carlo Ratti.


Data collection

China is creating new cities at an astonishing rate, redefining the urban landscape with plans to create 19 gigantic urban clusters and the world's first super-city with more than 40 million inhabitants.

Urban development on this scale will demand efficiency. Traffic will have to be controlled to avoid weeklong jams, and transport will have to be green to avoid killing everyone with CO2 emissions.

But there will also be a need for citizens themselves to be more efficient. Littering, playing music too loud on a train, running across the road when the lights are red - these will stop being minor indiscretions and become major inconveniences in cities so large.

In 2014, the idea of a social credit system was unveiled. The somewhat Orwellian plan is to reward citizens for good behaviour and punish them for bad. In March this year, millions of discredited travellers were banned from buying train or plane tickets for a range of offences, such as using expired tickets or smoking on a train.

"In China, the whole social scoring experiment is fascinating but I'm glad that I don't have to live through it," said smart cities consultant Charles Reed Anderson.

Currently there is no unified social credit system. Instead local governments enforce the idea in different ways, which can sometimes have a knock-on effect on foreign visitors.

Mr Anderson told an anecdote about a friend who had recently visited a Chinese city.

"He got to his hotel and realised he had left [his phone in a taxi], so the hotel walked him to the police station," he explained.

"The police pulled up the data about the vehicle but didn't have the traffic cam so they took him to another department a few blocks away, and they were able to track the taxi in real time and called the driver to ask him to bring back the phone.

"Within two hours he had his phone back."

"The taxi driver may have been worried that if he didn't return it, he was going to get a negative score."

There has been huge criticism of the system but, says Mr Anderson, it probably feels far less creepy to Chinese citizens, who have grown up used to have their activities monitored by the state.

"I'm not 100 percent behind it - it can deliver some good things. But if it starts getting abused then it becomes a major problem," he said.

Human Rights Watch revealed earlier this year that one social credit system being used in the Xinjiang region, home to a largely Muslim population, was linked to an app used by Chinese police and other government officials.


City brain

More and more data and information is falling into the hands of the government via sensors and other technology in cities.

But what happens when cities do deals with private tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, who themselves have vast databases of information on citizens?

Alibaba is headquartered in the eastern city of Hangzhou and has spent two years developing a platform dubbed the City Brain, which analyses data from cameras and the GPS location of cars and buses, and uses it to control more than one thousand traffic lights to prevent gridlock.

It claims it has helped drop the city of seven million people from the fifth most congested in China to 57th on the list.

Now cities are handing over chunks of land to tech firms.

The Shenzhen government has just awarded Tencent a small 809 sq m (8,708 sq ft) plot of reclaimed land in order to build what it describes as "a future city focused on technology and innovation".

And increasingly, Western cities are also doing deals with Chinese firms.

Councillors in Darwin, Australia travelled to China to meet Huawei and see its technology in Shenzhen. The firm then implemented a $10m programme to roll out 900 smart LED lights, 24 environmental sensors and a network of 138 CCTV cameras.

Rejecting claims the city was going to implement a similar social credit scheme of its own, Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis told ABC News that "there's no facial recognition... and our cameras can't tell who you are or what you do".

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Switzerland Celebrates 734 Years of Independence Amid Global Changes
China Enforces Comprehensive Ban on Cryptocurrency Activities
Grok 4 Video plus Voice, can identify wildlife!
George Soros tells the World Economic Forum: "President Trump is a con man and the ultimate narcissist, who wants the world to revolve around him."
Hamas are STARVING the hostages.
The UK Does Not Have a ‘Far-Right’ Problem
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
JD Vance Warns Europe Faces “Civilizational Suicide” Over Open Borders and Speech Limits
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
Trump Administration Finalizes Broad Tariff Increases on Global Trade Partners
JD.com Launches €2.2 Billion Bid for German Electronics Retailer Ceconomy
Azerbaijan Proceeds with Plan to Legalise Casinos on Artificial Islands
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
×