To tighten its grip on the society, the CCP has imposed mass surveillance on its citizens using an array of monitoring technology. For instance, surveillance on daily life and locations are conducted via the "Golden Shield Project" (internet control), the "Skynet Project" (people-tracking through facial recognition), and "Project Dazzling Snow" (connecting mobile phones to home-based TVs). Meanwhile, surveillance on teachers and students are enforced through classroom-based facial recognition systems and the "Student Information Officer Mechanism." The CCP's mass surveillance leaves no room for privacy in daily life and constitutes serious human rights violations.
The CCP has recently demanded that all universities and all departments to comprehensively strengthen political indoctrination for their students. It also required the 37 universities with "national key Marxist colleges" to offer compulsory courses on "Introduction to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era." The 37 universities include Peking University, Tsinghua University (PRC), Renmin University of China, and other top schools. The "Patriotic Education Law," which was announced on December 24, 2023, and came into effect on January 1, 2024, aims to regulate the school education system by legal means. The law mandates the inclusion of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the political thought of top leaders including Mao, Deng, and Xi in the curriculum at all levels of the education system. It also makes Communist dogma guidelines for patriotic education, such as "love of the country, love of the party, and love of socialism." This could affect the educational rights of Taiwanese students and the children of Taiwanese business people studying in mainland China. The scope of the "Patriotic Education Law" has extended to other aspects of society such as culture, tourism, religion, news publishing, broadcasting, and online information. The intention is to further control and constrain the political thought and ideology of the people. It is worth noting that this law applies directly to the people of Taiwan. Taiwanese citizens engaging in business exchanges or educational pursuits in mainland China should be alert to the increased risk of scrutiny for political ideology and forced indoctrination. Persons who violate the law could also face criminal or administrative penalties.
Example 1: The ubiquitous monitoring of mainland Chinese society is made possible with internet censorship, social surveillance, and credit data. The "public security protection and control" monitoring system named "Project Dazzling Snow" is a so-called "public security video surveillance network sharing system." The system connects to people's mobile phones and their TVs at home to monitor social movements with grid management.
Example 2: Mainland China is establishing a "Student Teaching Information Officer" system at colleges and universities to record classroom activity, as well as collect and report "problems in each link of classroom teaching and teaching management."
Example 3: Colleges and universities in mainland China started recruiting Taiwanese students based on the results of their General Scholastic Ability Test instead of requiring them to pass the local university entrance exam. Many mainland Chinese schools have explicitly pointed out in their admissions brochure that students should "support the 'one country, two systems' initiative and 'national unification'," raising concerns that Taiwanese high school students studying in mainland China could be subjected to political and thought censorship by their government.
Example 4: In recent years, the CCP has sought to strengthen party leadership over the administration by creating the "Office of the Party and the Administration” in colleges and universities by merging their party commission office and the president's office. This has taken place in schools such as Tsinghua University in Beijing. These offices are positively referred to as "mergers" while in reality they represent the party commission office taking over the president’s office as the authorities seek to tighten control over students through the schools.