Where is the line between digital utopia and digital police state？

Surveillance State tells the gripping， startling， and detailed story of how China’s Communist Party is building a new kind of political control: shaping the will of the people through the sophisticated—and often brutal—harnessing of data。

It is a story born in Silicon Valley and America’s “War on Terror，” and now playing out in alarming ways on China’s remote Central Asian frontier。 As a minority separatist movement strains against Party control， China’s leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI。 But across the country in the city of Hangzhou， the government is weaving a digital utopia， where technology helps optimize everything from traffic patterns to food safety to emergency response。

Award-winning journalists Josh Chin and Liza Lin take readers on a journey through the new world China is building within its borders， and beyond。 Telling harrowing stories of the people and families affected by the Party’s ambitions， Surveillance State reveals a future that is already underway—a new society engineered around the power of digital surveillance。