Every week, Moritz Koch, head of the Handelsblatt office in Brussels, analyzes trends and conflicts, regulatory projects and strategic concepts from the inner workings of the EU. Because anyone interested in business needs to know what’s going on in Brussels. You can reach him at: [email protected]
Europe follows the Olympic Games in Beijing with a mixture of horror and fascination, with the horror clearly predominating.
A diplomatic boycott, such as that decided by the USA, Great Britain and Canada in protest at the Chinese state party’s human rights violations, was also discussed in Brussels. There was no majority for a common position of the EU, but only a few European countries can be represented at high level in Beijing.
Dealing with China is one of Europe’s greatest challenges. More important than the question of whether the authoritarian rulers are spoiled by the symbolic absence of state dignitaries is Europe’s attitude to the political and technological revolution emanating from Beijing.
China has experienced rapid growth over the past 30 years, the workers’ and farmers’ state has become a high-tech country. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, there is an ideological alternative to Western democracy that is economically attractive. China’s Communist Party has succeeded in decoupling prosperity and freedom – and thus destroying Western certainties about the systemic conflict with authoritarian powers.
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The self-confidence that comes from this is also evident at the Olympic Games. They are an expo for the dictatorship of the future, a world exhibition for high-tech surveillance. Reality was never as close to George Orwell as it was in Xi Jinping’s China.
The omnipresence of AI-controlled cameras and face recognition is fueling fears in Europe – but also arousing desires. Looking at events in China solely through the prism of the rivalry between authoritarianism and democracy fails to see how enticing Chinese surveillance methods are to European security agencies as well.
Danger of mass surveillance also in Europe
Efforts to increase the use of facial recognition, for example to combat terrorism, have long been in the EU. The Greens in the EU Parliament have now compiled these initiatives in a study.
Pirate politician Patrick Breyer, who has joined the Green Group, warns: “There is a real danger that biometric mass surveillance will be made socially acceptable in Europe via the Olympic Games.” France in particular, which currently holds the EU Council Presidency, is a “pioneer of this surveillance technology” in Europe.
The EU Commission wants to ban mass facial recognition in principle, but its proposal to regulate artificial intelligence provides for important exceptions, for example when it comes to preventing terrorist attacks and finding serious criminals. The bill is now being discussed in Parliament. The risk of abuse plays a central role in the negotiations.
Recently, reports on the use of the Pegasus spy software in Poland and Hungary have made it clear that total digital surveillance is not only attractive to Chinese Communist Party officials. In any case, the transition between democracy and authoritarianism is fluid, as the example of both countries shows.
More: The cynical games of Beijing. An analysis.