The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this week that foreign passengers boarding flights to China will be required to present a two-dimensional (2D) electronic or paper printout of their health declaration for airline verification, according to regulations on travel to China issued by Chinese embassies abroad.
In a notice posted on its website, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said that starting at 0000 UTC on December 1, 2020, Chinese embassies and consulates in the U.S. will issue QR codes with the “HDC” logo for foreign passengers traveling from the U.S. to China on flights. Foreign passengers will be able to fill out information, declare their health status, and upload documents such as double-negative test certificates, personal passports, and itineraries online through China’s website.
The notice said that the Chinese embassy or consulate will issue the QR code of the health declaration form with the “HDC” logo after the verification.
On the other hand, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the establishment of an international mutual recognition mechanism for HDCs when he attended the G20 Summit by video on June 21. Xi said that countries “should strengthen policies and standards docking, and build a “fast track” to facilitate the orderly movement of people. He said, “China proposes to establish an international mutual recognition mechanism based on nucleic acid test results in the form of internationally accepted QR codes, and hopes more countries will participate.
International Version of Big Data Monitoring
The two-dimensional “health code” determines whether a person should be quarantined or allowed to travel and access subways, stores, and other public places. The technology is believed to have played an important role in controlling the epidemic in China, but has also drawn widespread criticism for violating human rights and individual privacy.
An analysis of the software code by The New York Times found that the system appears to share information with the police, setting a template for new automated forms of social control. Although Internet companies in China often share data with the government, the process is rarely so straightforward, the report said.
There are other countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and Singapore, that have used “health codes” to control the spread of epidemics. Unlike China’s smartphone tracking system, however, democracies are based on voluntary participation, and people share information out of a sense of civic duty.
Kenneth Roth, CEO of the international organization Human Rights Watch, took to social media to warn people to beware of the Chinese government’s International Health Code proposal. In a tweet, he said, “Software initially used for health issues could easily become a ‘Trojan horse’ for larger political surveillance and exclusion.
Dan Baer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “Unfortunately, we’ve all seen how China uses data to suppress its own citizens.
He says, “Most people in the world, most countries, most governments have legitimate concerns about what China might do with this data in the future. Obviously, data that can be used today to solve public health problems can be diverted for other purposes in the future.”
The global airline industry has been one of the hardest hit by the new coronavirus. A report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday said that the global aviation industry will suffer a net loss of more than $100 billion in 2020, with severe losses continuing through 2021.
Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-based think tank, said that if countries had a unified code and a mutually accepted mechanism it would have a positive effect on tourism, the revival of the airline industry and the recovery of international travel. But few other countries have health codes, and China’s approach is likely to cause a backlash in the West.
He said: “For China, health codes are already relatively common, but in other countries they are rare, and there has been some criticism of the use of big data, the use of high technology to monitor the movement of people, especially in the West where it is seen as an invasion of privacy and illegal, and there is concern that this is a manifestation of what they call digital authoritarianism. “
Try Again Global Digital Governance
Over the past week, Chinese leader President Xi Jinping has attended three consecutive major international summits by video, including the BRICS Summit, the APEC Leaders’ Informal Meeting, and the G20 Leaders’ Summit, outlining a new world order that China desires and defining some specific propositions in the area of global digital governance.
While proposing the establishment of an international mutual recognition mechanism for health QR codes, Xi also emphasized at the G20 Leaders Summit that China is willing to “discuss and formulate global digital governance rules with all parties” based on the recently proposed Global Data Security Initiative (GDSI).
The significance of China’s proposal to establish an international QR code mechanism for health is that it is yet another attempt by China to lead the establishment of rules for global digital governance that go far beyond the prevention and control of the epidemic itself, according to observers.
In an article titled “China’s Approach to Global Governance” in the American magazine The Diplomat, Huang Yanzhong said that China is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to promote global governance. In the Internet arena, he said, some international norms and mechanisms are still being established, and China is working with authoritarian governments in this area to develop international standards that meet its interests.
Daniel Baer, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that implementing China’s version of standard digital governance would also help Beijing strengthen the legitimacy of its regime.
China is constantly trying to gain political legitimacy for an authoritarian government,” he said. In addition to economic growth, the Communist Party has been trying to make its government a functioning institution in global governance.”
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