<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Chinese government has blanketed the country with the world's largest network of surveillance cameras.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Some cameras swivel, ensuring sweeping views of public squares. Others scan license plates of passing cars, allowing police to track vehicles in real-time. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>At night, cameras light up across China's cities, shining lights down alleys and corners.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/ben-austin-young-cricketer-dies-after-training-accident-victoria/b55935be-0408-4938-a3e6-bb46b649c8b1" target="_blank"><strong><span>Teen cricketer dies after training tragedy</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Over the past few decades, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of high-tech surveillance projects aimed at bringing the entire country under watch, including "Sky Net" and the "Golden Shield".</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The latest such project is called the "Xueliang Project," or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from Communist China's founder, Mao Zedong, who once said "the people have sharp eyes" when urging them to root out neighbours opposed to socialist values.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>AP investigations have found that American companies to a large degree designed and built China's surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/how-surveillance-cameras-keep-control-in-china/843cf828-622e-4004-8bb0-da5373ec8775" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The US government repeatedly allowed and even actively helped American firms to sell technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, AP found.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The cameras studding China are knitted together in policing systems that allow authorities to track and control virtually anyone in the country, often targeting perceived threats to the state like dissidents, religious believers or ethnic minorities.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/finance/commonwealth-bank-westpac-interest-rate-cut-forecasts-high-inflation/85ab1489-c06f-4e62-839e-c88ed18b34d4" target="_blank"><strong><span>Major banks drop grim new forecast for interest rates</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Following directives from Beijing to ensure "100 per cent coverage" in key public areas, authorities have installed facial-recognition cameras across the country, including in unlikely locations, such as ski slopes, beaches, remote country roads and The Great Wall of China.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A slew of cameras greets visitors to Beijing, with a screen underneath announcing: "Amazing China travel starts here!"</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>At times, entire neighbourhoods have been demolished and rebuilt in part to make it easier for cameras to keep watch.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The historic quarter of Xinjiang's ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, once a maze-like warren of twisting alleys, was demolished and rebuilt with wider avenues and thousands of camera that light up at night.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/sunscreen-scandal-australia-mum-claims-she-used-recalled-ultra-violette-lean-screen-for-two-years-before-skin-cancer-diagnosis/ed42b06f-2e1c-451f-9b7a-e90d27bd818e" target="_blank"><strong><span>Mum claims she used recalled sunscreen for two years before skin cancer</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>China's cities, roads and villages are now studded with more cameras than the rest of the world combined, analysts say - roughly one for every two people.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The goal is clear, according to authorities: Total surveillance in every corner of the country, with "no blind spots" to be found.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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