China’s PAP explores automated crowd control amid systemic urban unrest: systemic risks of dehumanised security
Original framing: “China’s armed police mull riot control without human contact at all” — South China Morning Post
The use of 'neutral' technology to justify repression has deep historical roots, from colonial-era fingerprinting to 20th-century eugenics and modern facial recognition. China’s experiment mirrors Cold War-era crowd-control tactics in the US and USSR, where 'scientific' policing was used to suppress dissent under the guise of order. The PAP’s scenario also echoes historical urban unrest responses, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, where technology (e.g., tanks, surveillance) was deployed to 'restore stability.'
China’s PAP proposal to automate riot control is not an isolated technological innovation but a culmination of historical patterns where authoritarian regimes weaponise 'neutral' systems to suppress dissent while obscuring structural violence.
The framing serves the party’s technocratic legitimacy, erasing the voices of marginalised groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Tibetans) whose lived experiences of state violence are reduced to 'crowd dynamics' in PAP scenarios. Cross-culturally, this approach clashes with Indigenous and African philosophies that prioritise relational security over coercion, while scientific evidence suggests automated systems often escalate rather than resolve conflict. The long-term risk is a global normalisation of dehumanised governance, where algorithms replace dialogue and economic inequality is met with algorithmic punishment. Solution pathways must therefore centre community-led justice, economic redistribution, and international accountability to disrupt this trajectory, drawing on historical precedents like South Africa’s Truth Commission or Brazil’s favela movements, which proved that security is a product of trust, not technology.