Grid-style social management in China

Grid-style social management in China was first mentioned in Shanghai in 2004. promoted by then Shanghai CCP Committee Secretary Chen Liangyu. The China National Grid project (CNGrid) was first implemented as a trial in Dongcheng District, Beijing in 2004, and coincided with the abolition of the agricultural tax in 2004 which reduced the power of local governments in China. The pilot project was launched in the Dongcheng District, where the district's 205 communities were subdivided into 589-part grid. 120,000 community watchers were enrolled. In December 2005, the authorities launched the China Grid Computing Center was officially formed to lead and manage the CNGrid. Eventually, test watchers were equipped with mobile devices designed for reporting and communications. Authorities also started to apply a multi-layer model in areas with denser populations. During the pandemic, Chinese authorities revealed more than 4.5 million grid workers were engaged in implementing the quarantine rules. == Functions ==

The grid-style social management process consists in subdividing a country's counties into smaller zones, and assign each zone to a person that reports all activity to the local government on a regular basis. China is divided into a nearly million separate grids. This model is applied in rural areas and cities. In cities, a person may be assigned to a specific number of households. The grid-style social manager is expected to report on the population size in the area, housing and facilities, social organizations, among other things. The grid-style social management system is connected to the authorities' CCTV cameras and police databases to achieve enhanced surveillance. The China Grid Computing Center divides 25.38 square kilometers into 1,652 single geographic grid cells of 100 square meters. Each single cell is assigned a unique 14-digit code. ==Analysis==

Despite its advanced technological surveillance systems, the CCP relies on its grid-style social management system to identify new threats, an area where technology is still shy compared to human surveillance. The situation also became critical in Xinjiang where humanitarian NGOs have reported that a biological database to track Uyghurs' DNA had been developed by the authorities and integrated within its grid-style surveillance system. ==See also==