OPINION | The Architecture of Repression: Xinjiang and the Militarization of Data

by Ashu Maan

In China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has constructed what may be the most expansive surveillance state in modern history, a digital panopticon built to rule through fear and algorithmic control. What Beijing calls “stability maintenance” and “counterterrorism” is, in practice, the systematic repression of 13 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. Every biometric scan, Wi-Fi ping, or power reading feeds into a vast predictive-policing network where daily life itself becomes evidence of potential disloyalty. This is not policing; it is governance through the militarization of data.

Integrated Joint Operations Platform: The Algorithm of Fear

At the center of this machinery is the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), a data-fusion and predictive-policing system developed by the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), one of Beijing’s largest defense contractors.

IJOP aggregates data from multiple sources: facial-recognition cameras, ID checkpoints, Wi-Fi sniffers, electricity meters, banking records, and police interrogations. It cross-references these inputs against state-defined “anomalies” to produce watchlists for detention or “re-education.”

Human Rights Watch reverse-engineered the IJOP mobile app and found that 36 categories of lawful behavior, such as entering a back door, avoiding neighbors, donating to mosques, or owning unregistered mobile devices, could trigger investigations.

According to leaked classified bulletins obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), IJOP flagged 24,412 people as “suspicious” in June 2017; within a week, security forces detained 15,683 for “vocational training” and arrested 706 others.

These orders were codified in the “China Cables,” internal directives approved by Xinjiang’s Party Secretary. They laid out operational procedures for mass detention: secrecy protocols, indoctrination mandates, isolation policies, and even shoot-to-kill orders for escape attempts.

Surveillance Ecology: From Streets to Servers

Xinjiang’s digital repression fuses software, hardware, and human enforcement into a single command ecosystem.

Thousands of “convenience police stations”, fortified outposts spaced every few hundred meters, form a grid management system dividing towns into zones of constant observation. AI-driven CCTV networks, license plate readers, and Wi-Fi interceptors funnel continuous data streams into IJOP.

Biometric collection completes the system. Under the “Physicals for All” program, authorities collected DNA samples, iris scans, fingerprints, and voice patterns from nearly 19 million residents aged 12 to 65. Marketed as “free medical checkups,” these datasets now power multi-modal identification systems that enable real-time tracking of individuals across the province.

Corporate Enablers of Authoritarian Tech

China’s surveillance state thrives through close collaboration between the state and industry.

Procurement records show that Hikvision, the world’s largest CCTV manufacturer, won multimillion-dollar contracts to build Xinjiang’s surveillance networks. Internal company documents confirm executives knew the systems targeted ethnic minorities as early as 2020. Police reports later linked specific Hikvision camera serial numbers to individual detentions.

Meanwhile, Dahua Technology developed and marketed “Uyghur alert” algorithms for law enforcement, facial-recognition tools capable of identifying Uyghur features with claimed accuracy above 97%. Between 2016 and 2018, local governments spent 129 million yuan on surveillance procurements, with 171 separate tenders explicitly requesting ethnic-recognition capabilities.

This collaboration embodies China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy, where civilian innovation is systematically repurposed for internal control and global export.

Predictive Policing as Preemptive Governance

Beijing’s internal directives describe a policy of “informatization of policing”, using data analytics and artificial intelligence to transform security operations. The goal is not to solve crimes but to prevent dissent before it occurs.

This model, echoing counterinsurgency logic, aims to engineer obedience rather than maintain order. The IJOP’s opaque “black box” algorithms eliminate due process. Citizens rarely know what data triggered suspicion, cannot challenge their classification, and often discover their status only upon detention.

The Xinjiang Police Files, over 10 GB of leaked documents published in 2022, revealed the human toll: mugshots of detainees as young as 15, armed camp protocols, and absurd categories such as “husbands of women who exceeded birth quotas.”

So-called “vocational centers” function as prisons. Transfers occur under shackles and blindfolds, supervised by armed escorts. The files confirm that “re-education” is, in reality, compulsory incarceration determined by algorithmic decree.

Xinjiang as a Prototype for Global Authoritarianism

Xinjiang is not just a domestic project; it is a testing ground for digital authoritarian governance.

The lessons learned there are now shaping surveillance exports worldwide. Chinese firms are marketing AI-driven surveillance systems to more than 80 countries, including regimes in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The Xinjiang experiment, combining biometrics, predictive analytics, and mass data collection, offers a scalable blueprint for governments seeking to manage populations through data-driven control.

This global trend, described by scholars as the “authoritarian tech stack,” threatens to normalize mass surveillance as an acceptable instrument of statecraft, undermining global human-rights norms in the process.

Conclusion: Engineering Obedience

Xinjiang epitomizes the fusion of authoritarian governance, militarized technology, and algorithmic control. The Integrated Joint Operations Platform does not predict crime, it fabricates criminals out of ordinary behavior. Prayer becomes extremism; cultural identity becomes sedition; and daily movement becomes evidence of flight risk.

Technology, in this configuration, is not neutral. It has become the scaffolding of systemic human-rights abuse, and a global model for algorithmic authoritarianism.

As democratic nations debate data privacy and AI ethics, Xinjiang stands as a warning of what happens when technological ambition outruns accountability: a population ruled by code, monitored by cameras, and silenced by design.

---

About the Author

Ashu Maan is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. He received the Vice Chief of the Army Staff Commendation Card on Army Day 2025 and is pursuing a PhD in Defense and Strategic Studies at Amity University, Noida. His research interests include the India-China territorial dispute, great power competition, and Chinese foreign policy.