China's high-tech gulag archipelago

Departures with Robert Amsterdam

In the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, more than 1.8 million people have been disappeared into a vast network of concentration camps without any clear charges, due process, or fair trial. How are these victims selected? Via state-of-the-art predictive artificial intelligence and surveillance technology systems deployed by Beijing that seek to punish people for political activity they may be profiled to potentially commit in the future.

This week on the podcast we're very pleased to feature journalist and author Geoffrey Cain, discussing his excellent new book, "The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future."

Cain's deep dive into the issues surrounding Xinjiang explores how the hardening of Xi Jinping's positions and adversarial tilt toward foreign powers has influenced this implementation of Big Tech in the service of crushing dissent among Uighur Chinese citizens.

The book tells this fascinating story through the eyes of three subjects who survived the "panopticon" and escaped abroad, obtaining impressive government and corporate sources to explain the extent of the police state's technological power and its resulting impact of creating a pervasive culture of fear and paranoia in this region and beyond.

Quite a terrifying read, but also an urgently important wake-up call.