CCP Bolstering Dictators Globally With Advanced Surveillance Tools: House Committee

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Nov 10, 2025 - 10:52 Updated: Nov 10, 2025 - 10:47
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CCP Bolstering Dictators Globally With Advanced Surveillance Tools: House Committee

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Beijing is using artificial intelligence (AI) to supercharge surveillance, seeking to gather enough information from different sources to be able to preempt dissent before it occurs, according to a report released on Nov. 3 by the House Select Committee on China.

According to the report, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to create “a comprehensive system of pre-emptive repression.”

Moreover, the CCP is selling these surveillance tools to over 80 nations, giving them tools to track their citizens’ whereabouts and online activity, the report states, warning that the CCP is the leading exporter of surveillance tools, with Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE often marketing them as being for public security.

However, in the hands of dictators, these tools are often used for monitoring political dissent, according to the report.

Following the recent thaw in the trade war with China in late October, the report highlights that the CCP remains a threat to human rights throughout the world. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, is urging President Donald Trump to keep democracy and human rights a key part of the trade dialogue.

“Our competition with the CCP is not only about markets or technology—it is about whether the future will be governed by fear or by freedom, by control or by conscience. If America fails to stand for these values, we risk ceding to the CCP a world increasingly defined by authoritarian control and coercive influence,” Krishnamoorthi said.

The report calls the CCP “the central pillar of a global axis of autocracy,” and a threat to democratic governments around the world. The committee warns the CCP is offering financial support and political backing to Iran, Russia, and North Korea, which share its dislike for U.S. influence in global affairs.

The CCP’s record of steamrolling democracy and human rights at home should not be ignored, the report states. It highlights the CCP’s attack on democracy in Hong Kong, a direct violation of the treaty the CCP signed with the UK before the handover of the territory to China in 1997, under which Hong Kong was to keep its “freedoms, rights, and way of life.”
The committee points to the National Security Law that Beijing forced on Hong Kong in 2020, which imposed limitations on political activity similar to the mainland.
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With political opposition weakened, Hong Kong in 2024 passed the Article 23 Ordinance, which criminalized political dissent. The law expanded the scope of “national security” and has thus been used to prosecute hundreds of activists, journalists, and former lawmakers.
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The ordinance contains vague definitions of treason, secession, sedition, and subversion against the government, allowing for broad application. The first prosecution under the Article 23 Ordinance was of a man wearing a shirt that said: “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times.”

The report warns that the CCP is developing neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces, and is investing in virtual and augmented reality to support surveillance activities. The CCP is already testing an online system that can interpret and respond to human emotions. The committee warns that such tools could be used in “sophisticated influence operations and achieve unprecedented intrusion into the private lives of individuals,” with the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions.

The report cites the examples of Tibet and Xinjiang, where residents are subjected to invasive surveillance. In Xinjiang, where more than 1 million people have been interned in labor camps, surveillance blankets the region, both online and in person, and includes pervasive facial recognition.

Such extensive surveillance empowers violations of human rights, according to the report. In Xinjiang, the CCP has confined ethnic Uyghurs to internment camps and is subjecting them to forced labor in such industries as fast fashion and critical minerals. At the same time, the CCP uses this program to uproot Uyghur culture and traditions. The State Department has already characterized the repression of the Uyghurs as genocide.

“Our strategic competition with the CCP is not merely a struggle for power. It is a contest of ideas between two fundamentally different visions of the global order: one rooted in freedom, human rights, and the rule of law and one built on authoritarian control and coercive influence,” the report states.

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