Channels, Fall 2018

Page 136 Warder • Eyes on the Money vs. privacy, it seems unlikely that after less than twenty years since the September 11, 2001 attacks a majority of citizens will feel both secure against domestic threats and violated enough to ubiquitously advocate for a reduction in government protection. Thus, within the foreseeable future, the USA will most likely continue its domestic program of CCTV surveillance. Case #2: The People’s Republic of China The PRC stands as the world’s other most prominent economic power, second only to the USA with a GDP of more than $11.2 trillion and an astonishing GDP growth of almost 7% in the last year (Trading Economics, 2018). Admittedly, statistics are in this case questionably analyzed and published by the national government, but the simple fact of the PRC’s place in the world as an economic power and continued growth speaks for itself on the world market. Similarly to the USA, the PRC helped to found and currently holds an important post in a number of international trade organizations, including large blocs such as ASEAN, the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, powerful emerging economies), and the East Asia Summit (AES). Thus, in a manner similar to the USA, the PRC has a well-founded interest in protecting its economic position and seeking to facilitate its future success. The realist trend in Chinese economic policy appears quite visibly in the form of its pursuit of the propagated Belt and Road Initiative , which entails wide-sweeping efforts to expand avenues of maritime trade throughout Southern Asia and into Eastern Africa and as far as the Mediterranean and Europe, as well as shoring up and enlarging overland trade routes and economic supply systems (such as pipelines, roads, etc.) across central Asia and into Europe. This extensive effort also includes and accounts for a key component of the PRC’s expansion into the South China Sea, a controversial process in which the various nations of SE Asia are currently vying for control of the contested waterway. By means of constructing artificial islands (in an attempt to justify claims of coastal territorial waters) and aggressive patrolling practices on the part of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the PRC holds a dominant position over the South China Sea, a position from which the PRC’s economy stands to gain a great deal. That particular waterway serves as a main trade artery for Southern and Eastern Asia, with an estimated $5.3 trillion in trade goods passing through it each year (CSIS, 2018). Achieving economy superiority in Asia depends greatly on the PRC’s ability to control that and similar crucial trade zones, and so the current government’s foreign policy directive is likely to continue. To further exemplify this policy, President Xi Jinping, the current leader of the PRC, spoke of the Belt and Road Initiative as a means of “enhancing infrastructure, trade, and financial connectivity” (Xi, 2017), with the direct implication that the PRC will serve as the main hub of this newly- connected Asia. He also spoke of the great need for “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” in order to protect the efforts of the Initiative. This endeavor, should it succeed in the long term, provides the PRC with a direct opportunity to establish itself as the primary economic partner of most of the eastern hemisphere and a significant portion of the world’s population, a position that Chinese governments historically held and certainly purpose to hold again. CCTV and Government Surveillance Policy, Public Reaction CCTV networks in the PRC actualized in a dissimilar manner to the USA, at least in terms of cited reasons for proliferation. The PRC has not suffered a terrorist attack or equivalent catastrophic event, and so the initiative for CCTV network development derives primarily from authoritarian-like policies of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). The official policy of the