China supplied the spy technology and technicians that allowed Myanmar’s junta to intensify its internet surveillance and censorship late last month, Justice for Myanmar (JFM) said on Thursday, warning that China’s increased support for the junta will cost more lives.
This support will allow the junta – which has imprisoned more than 25,000 people since the 2021 coup – to identify and jail more people who express dissent.
The two Chinese companies supplying the junta with the tools it needs to build a more effective digital dictatorship are both linked to Fang Binxing, the “father” of the Great Firewall of China, JFM said in its report “The Myanmar Junta’s Partners in Digital Surveillance and Censorship.”
The report explains how Chinese technology makes the junta’s intensifying crackdown on internet freedom possible and notes that it will cost lives.
The junta introduced a new internet surveillance and censorship system at the end of last month. It can intercept and decrypt web traffic as well as block and monitor the use of applications, including virtual private networks (VPNs), which have been used to evade junta surveillance.
Chinese technology is essential to the junta’s expansion of surveillance and censorship, the report says.
Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for JFM, said this will cost lives.
“Chinese companies and their Myanmar crony partners are providing the illegal junta with surveillance and censorship technology that will cost lives. This new Chinese technology will further aid and abet the junta’s crimes against humanity as it seeks to track down those who oppose [it],” she said.
JFM identified the two Chinese companies involved in internet surveillance in Myanmar as Geedge Networks and state-owned China National Electronics Import and Export Corporation (CNEIEC). Fang is the founder of Geege Networks as well as its chief scientist. He is also the chief scientist of CNEIEC’s parent company, China Electronics Corporation.
Two Geege products are being used in the new surveillance and censorship system activated in Myanmar: Taingou Secure Gateway and Cyber Narrator.
The former can decrypt and inspect web traffic between servers and clients with deep-pack inspection. Taingou Secure Gateway also includes a firewall that can block applications, including VPNs.
Cyber Narrator is a network intelligence platform that monitors and analyzes internet traffic and responds to “threats”, including the use of VPNs.
CNEIEC, meanwhile, is helping the junta’s Information Technology and Cyber Security Department build a location tracking system. The state-owned company also supplies air defense radar systems to Myanmar’s military, JFM said, citing a leaked document.
The junta’s internet spying department is also being assisted by a team of technicians from China, JFM said, adding that it “could not confirm if the Chinese technicians were from Geedge Networks or other companies.”
Crony-led Mascots Group of Companies is brokering the business between both Chinese internet surveillance companies and the junta, JFM said.
The group is led by Dr Win Kyaw and his wife Khin Kay Khaing who were previously linked to a network of companies in Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand identified as arms brokers for Myanmar’s military by the United Nations last year.
With the support of Chinese companies and Myanmar cronies, the junta has made significant progress in building a digital dictatorship since the 2021 coup, JFM said.
Inaction has made the global community – including Thailand and Singapore – complicit in war crimes and atrocities, JFM noted. Mascot Group controls companies in both Thailand and Singapore and these firms could give war criminals access to international funding, it explained.
In its report, JFM called on the international community to sanction Geedge Networks, CEIEC and Mascots Group, their directors and related companies, for supporting crimes committed against the people of Myanmar.
Noting that global inaction is responsible for curtailing the Myanmar people’s rights to privacy, free expression and information, JFM urged governments to “change course and take decisive steps to support the Myanmar people’s courageous struggle for federal democracy by blocking companies and individuals in their territory from providing the illegal junta with arms, equipment, technology, technical support and jet fuel.”
