BEIJING, China (AP) — The Chinese government has blanketed the country with the world’s largest network of surveillance cameras.
Some cameras swivel, ensuring sweeping views of public squares. Others scan license plates of passing cars, allowing police to track vehicles in real-time. At night, cameras light up across China’s cities, shining lights down alleys and corners.
Over the past few decades, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of high-tech surveillance projects aimed at bringing the entire country under watch, including “Sky Net” and the “Golden Shield”.
A worker naps near a security camera along a deserted beach near Sanya city in southern China’s Hainan province, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A portrait of late paramount leader Mao Zedong is seen behind security cameras near Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Pigeons fly past security surveillance cameras during sunset in Beijing, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
CCTV cameras are lined up on a pole along a road in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Surveillance cameras above a screen reading “Amazing China travel starts here!” monitor passengers at an airport in Beijing, China, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
The silhouette of a security camera is seen near those of sacred ancient guardian beasts on the roofs of the more than 600-year-old Forbidden City in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A woman in traditional Chinese clothing talks with a man underneath security cameras outside the Forbidden City in Beijing, Saturday, April 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A security camera monitors visitors to the Great Wall of China on the outskirts of Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Visitos walk under security cameras at a mosque in Kashgar, in western China’s Xinjiang region, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
An elderly woman walks along the popular Nanluogu alleyway past security cameras in Beijing, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A motorist sits at an intersection near a row of surveillance cameras in Changzhou city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Workers clear debris around security cameras as rising waters flood a stretch of Qinghai Lake in western China’s Qinghai province, Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A CCTV camera is positioned beside lanterns at the Summer Palace in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
A security guard stands near a fence with a security camera at a shopping mall in Beijing, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A surveillance camera installed in a forest by a ski slope watches skiers and snowboarders in Chongli, China, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
A security camera monitors visitors to the Great Wall of China on the outskirts of Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A CCTV camera is positioned outside the Summer Palace in Beijing on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Tourists pose for photos near security cameras along a beach in Sanya city in southern China’s Hainan province, Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
The sun sets near security cameras along a beach near Sanya city in southern China’s Hainan province on Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
The latest such project is called the “Xueliang Project,” or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from Communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong, who once said “the people have sharp eyes” when urging them to root out neighbors opposed to socialist values.
AP investigations have found that American companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known. The U.S. government repeatedly allowed and even actively helped American firms to sell technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, AP found.
The cameras studding China are knitted together in policing systems that allow authorities to track and control virtually anyone in the country, often targeting perceived threats to the state like dissidents, religious believers or ethnic minorities. Following directives from Beijing to ensure “100 percent coverage” in key public areas, authorities have installed facial-recognition cameras across the country, including in unlikely locations:
Ski slopes.
Beaches.
Remote country roads.
The Great Wall of China.
A slew of cameras greets visitors to Beijing, with a screen underneath announcing: “Amazing China travel starts here!”
At times, entire neighborhoods have been demolished and rebuilt in part to make it easier for cameras to keep watch. The historic quarter of Xinjiang’s ancient silk road city of Kashgar, once a maze-like warren of twisting alleys, was demolished and rebuilt with wider avenues and thousands of camera that light up at night.
China’s cities, roads and villages are now studded with more cameras than the rest of the world combined, analysts say — roughly one for every two people.
The goal is clear, according to authorities: Total surveillance in every corner of the country, with “no blind spots” to be found.
This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
