“China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using US Equipment: Even Children Are Pressed into Giving Blood Samples to Build a Sweeping Genetic Database That Will Add to Beijing’s Growing Surveillance Capabilities, Raising Questions about Abuse and Privacy.”, 2020-06-17 (; similar):
The police in China are collecting blood samples from men and boys from across the country to build a genetic map of its roughly 700 million males, giving the authorities a powerful new tool for their emerging high-tech surveillance state.
They have swept across the country since late 2017 to collect enough samples to build a vast DNA database, according to a new study published on Wednesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organization, based on documents also reviewed by The New York Times. With this database, the authorities would be able to track down a man’s male relatives using only that man’s blood, saliva or other genetic material. An American company, Thermo Fisher, is helping: The Massachusetts company has sold testing kits to the Chinese police tailored to their specifications. American lawmakers have criticized Thermo Fisher for selling equipment to the Chinese authorities, but the company has defended its business.
…The campaign even involves schools. In one southern coastal town in China, young boys offered up their tiny fingers to a police officer with a needle. About 230 miles to the north, officers went from table to table taking blood from schoolboys while the girls watched quizzically. Jiang Haolin, 31, gave a blood sample, too. He had no choice. The authorities told Mr. Jiang, a computer engineer from a rural county in northern China, that “if blood wasn’t collected, we would be listed as a ‘black household’”, he said last year, and it would deprive him and his family of benefits like the right to travel and go to a hospital…It is unclear whether the people in those photos fully understood what the blood collection was for. Interviews and social media posts have suggested that the failure to give blood would result in punishment.
…China already holds the world’s largest trove of genetic material, totaling 80 million profiles, according to state media. But earlier DNA gathering efforts were often more focused. Officials targeted criminal suspects or groups they considered potentially destabilizing, like migrant workers in certain neighborhoods. The police have also gathered DNA from ethnic minority groups like the Uighurs as a way to tighten the Communist Party’s control over them. The effort to compile a national male database broadens those efforts, said Emile Dirks, an author of the report from the Australian institute and a Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at the University of Toronto. “We are seeing the expansion of those models to the rest of China in an aggressive way that I don’t think we’ve seen before”, Mr. Dirks said.
In the report released by the Australian institute, it estimated that the authorities aimed to collect DNA samples from 35 million to 70 million men and boys, or roughly 5% to 10% of China’s male population. They do not need to sample every male, because one person’s DNA sample can unlock the genetic identity of male relatives…Local officials often publicly announce the results of their sampling. In Donglan County in the Guangxi region, the police said they had collected more than 10,800 samples, covering nearly 10% of the male population. In Yijun County in Shaanxi Province, the police said they had collected more than 11,700 samples, or one quarter.