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  • There's no disputing that Shenzhen has become one of the most important places in the world of tech.

  • Nowhere else has quite as potent a combination of tech know-how, cheap manufacturing costs, and sheer speed.

  • But it goes further than that. Living in Shenzhen is in many ways like living in the future.

  • And not necessarily a utopian future. More like the other kind.

  • Consider Zowee.

  • Zowee operates a factory much like any other in Shenzhen. They make cheap smartphones and other electronics.

  • Like other top manufacturers, they've built a complex where workers can live right beside the factory line,

  • work around the clock for a couple of years, and hopefully buy a better life for their families back home.

  • The factories here are clean, and the work is precise.

  • But things are changing quickly in a way that does not favor the common man and woman.

  • All the rest of these lines are staffed by about 80 people, but right here there are new machines coming online

  • that are going to build a smartphone end-to-end completely by robots.

  • The end goal of something like this is to get the quality of the products higher, to bring costs down from less labor,

  • and ultimately to keep China as the manufacturing hub of the world

  • and fend off low-priced competition from places like Southeast Asia.

  • The factory of the future looks like this.

  • It's a closed off loop where robots pass components among each other,

  • and finished products pop out at the end.

  • All those workers have been replaced by one lonely final inspector.

  • It's a strong sign that the future of Shenzhen is less for these guys...

  • ...and more for these guys.

  • Zowee actually builds these automation machines itself. Behind me are some of China's best and brightest engineers,

  • hard at work building the machines you see out on the floor today,

  • and the ones that are coming tomorrow that are going to automate the entire factory line.

  • Nowhere will face more turmoil than Shenzhen as the robots rise and send millions of workers to the unemployment line.

  • But it's not just the working class that's facing a dark future.

  • There are dystopian innovations that seem to touch every facet of life here.

  • I ran into one example of this while attempting to rehydrate.

  • After some investigation, I discover what's going on here, and it has to do with these things: QR codes.

  • You know the drill. You scan the code and something pops up on your phone, like a promotion or discount.

  • America laughed these things off years ago, but here, they run the entire economy.

  • Cash and credit cards are history. Instead you scan QR codes to pay for everything: restaurants, groceries, even buskers.

  • On the surface this is all good. It's the easy, convenient mobile payment system of the future.

  • But there's also a dark side.

  • The Chinese government can peer into the two dominant payment systems, AliPay and WeChat, as it sees fit.

  • It's already started tracking behavior as part of a plan to rank citizens and measure how good and obedient they are.

  • The tech revolution may have brought prosperity to Shenzhen

  • but it's also brought more and more insidious intrusions into people's lives.

  • To dig deeper into life under the Chinese deep state,

  • I've assembled a team of extraordinary foreigners who work at tech startups in Shenzhen.

  • Hopefully a few beers will encourage them to open up about their thought crimes.

  • Living in a very tightly regulated Communist country - does that bother you, or you don't care?

  • The presumption at least that I got before I came from Australia was sort of like moving into a sort of like a militarized state,

  • like things are going to be really intense. But like, you take a beer, just like walk down the road, hang out in the park, fine.

  • Do that back in my hometown in Australia, like, straight to the cop-house.

  • But then, play spikeball on the grass, and then all of a sudden the cops come and stop you.

  • Well and you got, you jaywalked and you had facial recognition?

  • I actually got this. So I was jaywalking in Nanxian. And all of a sudden I got a fine to my WeChat.

  • Was it instant?

  • It was about 20 seconds after, I guess. I had money in my balance and it just went straight out.

  • This is just for the one thing - it just came straight out.

  • Didn't even authorize it. That's crazy.

  • It's true. Try to jaywalk in certain parts of Shenzhen, and the government's facial recognition will spot you.

  • There's even a board of shame, showing the faces of recent offenders.

  • I'm surprised and very very worried that they have your face in the facial recognition - like, the facial recognition system.

  • But they have everyone's though. When you go across the border they take that picture, exactly, yeah.

  • So it's all in the system, they know where you are.

  • That's scary.

  • It gets even scarier. Because big brother is watching what you do online too.

  • Most of the websites we know and love are blocked in China, replaced with Chinese equivalents that the government can monitor:

  • a sort of mirror universe internet.

  • I asked my friend Diane, a Shenzhen native, to help break this down.

  • Appropriately enough, she took me to this restaurant staffed entirely by robots.

  • That's some gnarly-looking chicken. Is that chicken?

  • Mmm... robot food.

  • I wanted you to help you out with one thing. So if I sorta call out a U.S. tech company, can you tell me the Chinese equivalent?

  • Because you know, you can't get Instagram or anything here, so.

  • Let's do a few.

  • So Google would be...

  • Baidu.

  • And Amazon...

  • is like, both JD.com and also Taobao

  • OK. And, and, um. YouTube?

  • Youqu. Youqu, Iqiyi.

  • Facebook we have WeChat. Yeah.

  • Do you feel like you're in a different universe? All the online stuff is such a big part of all our lives.

  • And it seems like China has created its own world.

  • Yeah, that's definitely like that. But like I said, for for like Instagram, I was surprised to see even -

  • Instagram got banned from China, but all the young people, they're there.

  • Still go. Yeah.

  • It turns out it is possible to access the freedom-loving internet here, via what's called a VPN:

  • an alternate internet connection that bypasses the government's blocks.

  • And you don't get in trouble if they see that you're on the VPN all the time?

  • For personal use, I don't think that's that big of a deal, yeah.

  • The future will be interesting for how the different worlds are collaborating together.

  • Yeah, and definitely the young generation, they're not like just, oh, I'm satisfied just to kind of stay inside. Yeah, they're more curious.

  • I came to Shenzhen hoping to find some kind of ground truth,

  • a clear picture of what China's growing tech prowess will mean for the rest of us.

  • Honestly though, I'm as confused as ever.

  • The city is full of energy, desire and creativity.

  • But exactly how those traits are channeled in the years ahead remains an open question.

  • My hope is that the best parts of our human nature get a chance to thrive,

  • and that 1984 can wait a few more decades to arrive.

  • And on that note, I leave you with this dashboard dog.

  • Because it's obviously good and pure and very happy.

There's no disputing that Shenzhen has become one of the most important places in the world of tech.

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中国のハイテクディストピアの内部 (Inside China's High-Tech Dystopia)

  • 140 12
    James-KG に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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