Red Moon

AI 5 wolidou Infighting

“Comrade, I have another alert for you.”

“Tell me.”

“A back channel into the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection headquarters overheard a message from a commission field team stationed in its Hong Kong office, reporting to Beijing. Two of their agents in Hong Kong observed another team of agents arresting Chan Qi and Fred Fredericks.”

“Discipline inspection agents observed other agents?”

“Yes. Those commission agents reporting this arrest to Beijing sounded displeased at this new development, saying they had located Chan and Fredericks getting on a bus in west Hong Kong, and were following the two to see if they would lead the agents to a safe house where they suspect someone must have been hiding the two young people since the time they disappeared from Shekou. Now, instead, the two are in the custody of this other group.”

“Which group?”

“The Hong Kong commission officers were perhaps using a code name for them, as they called these interlopers red darts.”

“Red darts? Not Red Spear?”

“Red darts. I can replay the recording of the report for you, if you like.”

“Please do that.”

The analyst listened to the recorded voices. The men making their report did indeed call the agents who had arrested Chan and Fredericks red darts. Hongse feibiao. It was not a term he had heard before. The agents were definitely not happy.

He said, “Please list all national security groups known to interact with the PLA.”

“Ministry of Public Security. Ministry of State Security. Central Commission for Military and Civilian Integration. Small Leading Group on the Internet and Informatization. State Asset Supervision and Administration Commission. Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group. International Department of the Central Committee. National Security Commission. National Security Leading Small Group. Central Leading Group on Comprehensively Deepening Reforms. Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. National Defense Science Commission. Cyberspace Administration. AI Strategic Advisory Committee. The Ministry of Propaganda. Lunar Security Administration. Lunar Research Personnel Coordination Committee.”

“All right, please stop.”

“There are more.”

“I know. The group I would really like to belong to, if I had my choice, is the Economic System and Ecological Civilization System Reform Specialized Group. But this is not my fate. How many groups in total are on this list of security organizations?”

“Seventy-three.”

“And each of them has a certain personnel, and an assigned space of action of more or less specificity. And not all of them share their data. And there is no integration by a single higher organization.”

“Most of them interact with the PLA, so perhaps the PLA could integrate them.”

“Good speculating, Little Eyeball, but no. I have contacts in the army, and they tell me there is no such integration there, nor is such a thing possible. Thus we have the balkanization of surveillance, which is one aspect of the infighting. Wolidou. A very old problem of the Chinese bureaucracy, probably as old as the system itself.”

“You must tell me.”

“I know. I am telling you. The idea of a total surveillance state is just a story told by some people. They like the story, or fear it. They use it to create fear in others. But there is no panopticon. The system is instead like a fly’s eye, but without a fly’s brain. Or maybe there is a fly’s worth of brain to it, but no more than that.”

“It does not seem well engineered.”

“No. It’s an improvisation. That’s what happens when the party-state puts itself above the laws it makes. It can form a new working group at any time, and it does. Then that group joins the infighting. And there is no law to control any of that.”

“It does not seem well designed.”

“No it doesn’t. Let’s try another way. Please scan all files you have access to and look for this term ‘red darts.’”

“I will do this.” Then, about three seconds later: “Four thousand five hundred ninety-three results.”

“Let me see them on a screen.”

He skimmed down the various links and references. Most of them were offering darts for sale. A few hundred appeared to be names of dart-throwing teams. None of them when cross-referenced to other terms seemed to refer to surveillance or security. This was peculiar, he thought, given the way the phrase seemed to echo Red Spear, which, although it was a secret organization, was pretty well-known to the intelligence community. It was the kind of secret group that needed to be known about to create its full effect. Various elements used this one mainly to pursue advantages created by incidents of hostile pilot syndrome. It was part of the PLA’s undeniable power in the party-state’s infighting, and certain security agencies aligned with the military used it too. Possibly the Hong Kong agents in the recording had used the phrase red darts to refer to some splinter unit of Red Spear that he didn’t know about. Or perhaps they were making fun of Red Spear, unlikely though that seemed. But bravado often appeared when people were attempting to hide their fear. And those voices had been afraid.