We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State

Written by Kai Strittmatter

Narrated by Matthew Waterson

Named a Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2020 by the Washington Post

As heard on NPR's Fresh Air, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look, based on decades of research, at how China created the most terrifying surveillance state in history. 

China’s new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre­cedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conver­sations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed into vast databases, along with everything from biometric information to social media activities to methods of birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan for faces and walking patterns to track each individual’s move­ment. In some schools, children’s facial expressions are monitored to make sure they are paying attention at the right times. In a new Social Credit System, each citizen is given a score for good behavior; for those who rate poorly, punishments include being banned from flying or taking high-speed trains, exclusion from certain jobs, and preventing their children from attending better schools. And it gets worse: advanced surveillance has led to the imprisonment of more than a million Chinese citizens in western China alone, many held in draconian “reeducation” camps.

This digital totalitarianism has been made possible not only with the help of Chinese private tech companies, but the complic­ity of Western governments and corporations eager to gain access to China’s huge market. And while governments debate trade wars and tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party and its local partners are aggressively stepping up their efforts to export their surveillance technology abroad—including to the United States.

We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance—and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.

“Terrifying. … A warning call."" —The Sunday Times (UK), a “Best Book of the Year so Far”

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063027329

Kai Strittmatter

Kai Strittmatter was for more than a decade the China correspondent for Germany’s national newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Fluent in Mandarin, he has studied China for more than 30 years, including extensive stints in Xi’an and Taipei. He is now a member of the advisory board at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. Kai lives in Copenhagen where he works as a correspondent for the Scandinavian countries.

Reviews for We Have Been Harmonized

[Mark Tosi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book that should be required reading in schools everywhere. This is a clear and concise look at China. The Chinese government (CG) will go to any lengths to achieve basically world domination. I don’t understand why other countries tiptoe around the CG and their feelings, I’d tell them to F*ck off when they overstep boundaries. This great book, is deeply researched and pulls no punches. The CG doesn’t care about who and how many people they step on, break whatever laws they need to and if they can buy it or make what they want, the CG just steals it. The CG needs to be put in their place and the UN has to stop playing patty cakes with the CG & their allies, before it’s too late. I highly recommend this book to get excellent insight to this most criminal and corrupt country.

[plappen_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the last few years, much has been written about Big Brother and the surveillance state. In the area of social control of its citizens, China is far ahead of the rest of the world.Under the Social Credit System, all citizens are given a three-digit number. Think of it as a FICO score that covers all aspects of daily life. A bad score can negatively affect a person's ability to travel by plane or train, their eligibility for certain jobs and their ability to get their children into a better school. No matter how innocuous an online posting, if it's even the tiniest bit not appreciated by the Chinese Communist Party, it will be deleted within minutes. The writer can also expect a very unfriendly visit from the police.To get access to the lucrative Chinese market, Western companies, like Google, have agreed to remove all references to Tiananmen Square, 1989, June 4, or any other terms that the Communist Party would like to make disappear. There is facial recognition technology that can pick one person out of a stadium. In western China, more than one million Muslims have been sent to "re-education" camps.This is a fascinating book. To see the "future" of total social control, look at present-day China. This book makes the worst of George Orwell look tame and boring. It is very much worth reading.

[aadyer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good , decent Book with insight into the Chinese political culture and leaders and society and the ways that that might influence the west and affect the ways of the European Union in particular in the near future. Not quite the Orwellian future you might expect but a more manipulative, fear driven, technological surveillance society. As an introduction into the culture of China and how things might change in the near future this is worth a look.