China has become a leader in developing and exporting its smart cities technologies like networked cameras, sensors, and location services—and the rest of the Internet of Things—to collect a wide variety of data in order to control things like traffic, energy usage, and crime, and to augment state power.
The following report, prepared for the Commission by SOS International LLC’s Intelligence Solutions Group, examines China’s rapid implementation of smart cities technologies domestically, including its burgeoning use of surveillance technologies to monitor and repress its population. The report also looks at China's widespread export of these technologies through a series of country case studies. The United States is a leading destination for these exports, and the report concludes by comparing U.S. versus Chinese capabilities and assessing the national security risks of widespread deployment of Chinese smart cities technologies in U.S. critical infrastructure.