American companies have helped China develop the most comprehensive surveillance system inthe world, raising fears of abuse by Chinese law enforcemen

BEIJING — In preparation for the Beijing Olympics and a series of other international events, some American companies are helping the Chinese government design and install one of the most comprehensive high-tech public surveillance systems in the world.

When told of the companies’ transactions, critics of China’s human rights record said the work violated the spirit of a sanctions law Congress passed after the Tiananmen Square killings.

The Commerce Department, however, says the sophisticated systems being installed, by companies like Honeywell, General Electric, United Technologies and I.B.M., do not run afoul of the ban on providing China with “crime control or detection instruments or equipment.” But the department has just opened a 45-day review of its policies on the sale of crime-control gear to China.

With athletes and spectators coming from around the world, every Olympic host nation works to build the best security system it can. In an era of heightened terrorism concerns, it could be argued, high-tech surveillance will be an indispensable part of China’s security preparations for the Olympics, which runs Aug. 8 to 24. And given China’s enormous economic potential, corporations are always eager to get a foothold here; the Olympics provides a prime opportunity.

But China’s regime, the most authoritarian to hold an Olympics since the Soviet Union’s in 1980, also presents particular challenges. Long after the visitors leave, security industry experts say, the surveillance equipment that Western companies leave behind will provide the authorities here with new tools to track not only criminals, but dissidents too.

“I don’t know of an intelligence-gathering operation in the world that, when given a new toy, doesn’t use it,” said Steve Vickers, a former head of criminal intelligence for the Hong Kong police who now leads a consulting firm.

Indeed, the autumn issue of the magazine of China’s public security ministry prominently listed places of religious worship and Internet cafes as locations to install new cameras.

A Commerce Department official who insisted on anonymity said that the agency was reviewing its entire list of banned exports, including military equipment, although the sale of crime control gear to China is on a special, fast-track review. Asked whether equipment identified as commercial by Western manufacturers could have crime control applications, the official replied, “There may be users in China who figure out law enforcement uses for it.”

Multinationals are reluctant to discuss their sales to China’s security forces, but they say they have done everything necessary to comply with relevant laws.

Information is not easy to come by, but an outline of China’s mammoth effort can be found in interviews with engineers at the public security ministry’s biennial convention, in visits to Chinese surveillance camera factories and police stations, and in reports on China prepared for member companies of the Security Industry Association, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va.

Interviews with security experts and executives in Asia and the United States also provided previously unknown details about the systems American companies are providing.

Honeywell has already started helping the police to set up an elaborate computer monitoring system to analyze feeds from indoor and outdoor cameras in one of Beijing’s most populated districts, where several Olympic sites are located.

The company is working on more expansive systems in Shanghai, in preparation for the 2010 World Expo there — in addition to government and business security systems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Changsha, Tianjin, Kunming and Xi’an.

General Electric has sold to Chinese authorities its powerful VisioWave system, which allows security officers to control thousands of video cameras simultaneously and automatically alerts them to suspicious or fast-moving objects, like people running. The system will be deployed at Beijing’s national convention center, including the Olympics media center.

I.B.M. is installing a similar system in Beijing that should be ready before the Olympics and will analyze and catalog people and behavior.

Julie Donahue, I.B.M.’s vice president for security and privacy services, told a technology news service in early December that by next summer I.B.M. would install in Beijing its newly developed Smart Surveillance System, a powerful network that links large numbers of video cameras. Company officials declined repeated requests to answer questions about the system or discuss Ms. Donahue’s remarks.

United Technologies flew three engineers from its Lenel security subsidiary in Rochester to Guangzhou, the biggest metropolis in southeastern China, to customize a 2,000-camera network in a single large neighborhood, the first step toward a citywide network of 250,000 cameras to be installed before the Asian Games in 2010. The company is also seeking contracts to build that network.

Critics argue that all these programs violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the American law written in response to the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The Commerce Department, charged with developing regulations that put the law in effect, stands by its rules. The department bars exports whose sole use is law enforcement, like equipment for detecting fingerprints at crime scenes. But video systems are allowed if they are “industrial or civilian intrusion alarm, traffic or industrial movement control or counting systems,” according to the regulations.

Since multinationals increasingly manufacture some security systems in China, export rules are irrelevant. But the post-Tiananmen law also prohibits companies from using American security technology anywhere in the world to supply China with banned products.

The companies note that the products they provide are not banned by the government. Honeywell said that it complies with the letter and spirit of the laws in every country where it operates. G.E. said it had reviewed the VisioWave sale to China and believed that it has complied fully with both the letter and spirit of the law.

United Technologies said that the equipment it is selling for Guangzhou is not banned under the legislation. I.B.M. said only that it complies with American regulations.

James Mulvenon is the director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, a government contractor in Washington that does classified analyses on overseas military and intelligence programs. He said the companies’ participation in Chinese surveillance “violates the spirit of the Tiananmen legislation.”

Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said United States companies “obviously don’t know the meaning of decency if they’re seeking out ways to wriggle through the loopholes in our laws to capitalize on the market opportunities presented by the Olympics.”

He added that his committee would continue its investigation into what he sees as American corporate assistance for political repression.

Mr. Mulvenon said that the pace of technological change means that products with mainly civilian applications, like management computer systems with powerful video surveillance features, had blurred the distinction between law enforcement and civilian technologies. But he said the Commerce Department tended to define narrowly the technologies that qualify as crime control and prevention under the Tiananmen legislation.

The Commerce Department official said the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security had prevented the export of a “medium-tech” product to China for the Olympics that was clearly intended for law enforcement use. The official declined to identify the product and insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the department.

Olympics security spending increased rapidly this year, after China’s little-noticed decision last winter to create a nationwide “safe cities” program, establishing surveillance camera networks in more than 600 cities.

A table in the security ministry’s magazine suggested the number of surveillance cameras needed in each community, based on its size, international prominence and location — from 250,000 to 300,000 cameras in metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai to 1,000 to 5,000 cameras for small towns and rural counties.

London already has as many as 500,000 cameras, if the count includes video systems at banks, supermarkets and other commercial locations. But government agencies in London have installed smaller, separate systems of a few hundred cameras at a time, in contrast with the highly integrated approach of the Chinese government.

By comparison, in New York City, the police are trying to assemble a network of 3,000 public and private cameras below Canal Street to discourage terrorism in Lower Manhattan; they are starting with 100 cameras.

Even China lacks enough security guards to watch the video feeds from so many cameras. So authorities have been shopping for foreign computer systems that automatically analyze the information, security executives said.

At this year’s security equipment convention — in Shenzhen, the center of China’s security industry — multinationals competed with Chinese companies to offer high-tech products, as police officials from around the country browsed the booths.

Part of the sales pitches from American companies is that their systems can protect the local police in incidents of alleged police abuse. When a car in Beijing hit an elderly foreign tourist, the police used Honeywell systems to check a nearby street camera and discovered that the tourist had been jaywalking, said He Han, a Honeywell engineer who had worked on the system.

“We were one of the first to introduce foreign advanced products and management practices,” Mr. He said. “We have the biggest user network in China.”

If American companies do not sell security systems here, Chinese companies will; the Shenzhen conference drew a handful of American companies, but about 800 of the nearly 1,000 exhibitors were Chinese — and they were aggressively pursuing contracts.

The young engineers in jacket and tie at the American booths stood in sharp contrast, for example, to a Chinese company’s booth with a half-dozen young women in black patent-leather boots and metallic silver micro-mini dresses.

China is likely to emerge from the Olympics with remarkable surveillance capabilities, said Mr. Vickers, the former Hong Kong police official.

“They are certainly getting the best stuff,” he added. “One, because money talks, and second, because whatever the diplomatic issues, the U.S. wants to supply the Olympics.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/business/worldbusiness/28security.html?_r=1&oref=slogin