Teng Biao’s Statement at a media briefing against Google’s Project D
Teng Biao’s Statement at a media briefing against Google’s Project Dragonfly
2019.6.17
Yesterday, two million Hongkongers marched as protesters against the Extradition Bill. However, the vast majority of the Mainland Chinese people do not know about this event. They do not know about Tiananmen Massacre either. In addition, they do not know about the Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo or his death in custody. They do not know that more than 150 Tibetan had self-immolation. And they do not know that two million Uighurs and Muslim minorities have been detained in concentration camps in East Turkestan.
The Great Firewall (GFW) has been powerful and effective, so have been Chinese censorship and brainwashing propaganda.
Such powerful and effective tools to block Chinese people from accessing truthful information are greatly due to the "help" from many Western companies. Fueled by a pure profit motive that ignores a balance with universal values, Western companies, including many tech giants such as Google, Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft, Nortel, and so on, have indulged and assisted the CCP’s High-Tech totalitarianism, an advanced version of George Orwell’s 1984. Such a totalitarian regime that utilizes internet technology, big data, AI, facial recognition, and DNA collection is unprecedented.
In the past years, the human rights situation in China has been deteriorating rapidly. Citizens who developed software circumventing the GFW and sold VPNs have been arrested and convicted. Hundreds of journalists and scholars have been fired. Thousands of rights activists and lawyers have been jailed. NGOs have been shut down. Thousands of crosses have been destroyed or burned. Countless church buildings and temples have been demolished. The atrocities taking place in the concentration camps in the East Turkestan are undoubtedly the worst human rights disaster since the 21st century.
The Chinese government violates human rights and suppresses freedom not only in China, but also beyond its borders. Dissidents holding foreign passports, such as Swedish, UK and Canadian passports, have been kidnapped, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. So, the rise of China’s high-technology totalitarianism is not only an insult to human dignity, but also an urgent threat to the freedom and security of the whole world.
Many Western companies have been strengthening the suppressive government in the name of making money, providing information, and technology neutrality. What we oppose today is not making money, but making money against moral, political, and legal obligations. What we oppose is not developing technology, but providing technology to promote dictatorship.
