Between Robocops and Precogs: China’s Novel Approach to Policing

Patrol robots glide through bustling train stations, scanning faces with clinical precision. In the name of safety, China has built an unprecedented system of AI-driven policing—an omnipresent eye that sees all, predicts all, and, if necessary, acts before a crime is even committed. What was once found between the covers of a dystopian piece of science-fiction, China has now turned into a reality. To its architects, this is the future of law enforcement. To its critics, it is a frightening vision of what absolute control looks like.

Predictive Policing: A Digital Shield

To the Chinese government, AI policing is not just an innovation—it is a necessity. With a population of 1.4 billion to manage, and its fear to meet the USSR’s fate, authorities argue that only technology can ensure stability. Its Skynet and Sharp Eyes surveillance networks, armed with over 500 million cameras, are not just passive recording devices; they are intelligent, self-learning systems capable of recognising faces, tracking movements, and even detecting changes in behaviour. In Xinjiang, the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) goes further, aggregating financial transactions, phone records, and social habits to preemptively flag individuals as a threat.

”By leveraging AI, law enforcement can shift from reactive policing to proactive crime prevention,” says Lin Jiabin of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The system does not merely catch ‘criminals’; it predicts their criminal acts before they have even happened . Straight out of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report? No, this is state-sanctioned policing technology.

Authorities hail this as a major success, arguing that AI has helped drive down incidents of fraud and violent crime. In many cities, the deployment of officers is now based not on reported incidents but on algorithmic forecasts of where crime is most likely to occur.

This system, while very appealing, has, like any new technology, one flaw that needs to be addressed: “The problem with predictive policing is that it often reflects state-defined threats rather than genuine crime prevention,” warns a Beijing-based legal scholar, speaking anonymously. The danger is that such systems don’t just predict crime; they define it.

Robo-Cops on the Beat

Patrol robots, outfitted with thermal imaging and license plate recognition, have been deployed in cities such as Zhengzhou and Guangzhou, autonomously scanning for anomalies. In Hangzhou, traffic enforcement robots issue citations without the need for human intervention.

Smart police stations, now appearing across the country, use facial recognition and AI-powered identity verification to allow citizens to report crimes, file complaints, or renew documents, all without ever interacting with an officer. At the 2017 Qingdao International Beer Festival, authorities used facial recognition cameras to identify and apprehend a suspect who had been on the run for a decade. In Beijing and Zhengzhou, officers are now equipped with smart glasses—AI-powered eyewear that scans faces and instantly cross-references them against national databases. The technology, officials say, dramatically speeds up suspect identification and response times.

The Impact on Crime and Law Enforcement

With relatively few officers per capita—the country ranks 128th globally in police-to-citizen ratios—authorities have turned to technology to fill the gap. Automation has allowed China to police its vast population without drastically expanding its workforce. Police officers are replaced by spherical police robots, such as the Rotunbot RT-G, to patrol the streets.

Crime rates have dropped. In 2023, Chinese authorities registered the lowest criminal cases in a decade. Theft cases have plummeted, with 980,000 incidents recorded, while fraud cases stood at 1.7 million. Even violent crimes have declined, with 5,443 murder cases reported in 2023. Officials credit AI surveillance and predictive analytics for much of this trend, arguing that real-time monitoring has a deterring effect.

The Cost and Benefit of Smart Policing

China’s investment in AI policing has come at a high cost. In 2023, the country spent approximately $224 billion on public security. In comparison, the U.S. allocates around $190 billion to its police forces, making American law enforcement the third-most expensive security apparatus in the world.

Unlike in China (which in absolute terms spends the most on it globally), where spending is focused on AI and automation, much of the American budget goes toward traditional policing, which does not deliver the same results as Chinese police.

Is it worth it? Smart policing offers the people comfort and an undeniable feeling of safety, making a visit to China more appealing to tourists.

Speaking from personal experience—having lost his phone, passport and credit card in a Beijing taxi around 1am—the author of this piece is very happy that such technology exists. The police used AI technology to understand the situation and then to find the taxi. Everything was returned in less than an hour. Would such an outcome be possible in any Western city?

The Future of AI Policing: Chinese Technology Everywhere?

Legal scholars and cybersecurity experts warn of the risk of embedding bias into law enforcement—AI systems, after all, are only as objective as the data they are trained on. “As we integrate AI into public governance, establishing robust legal protections is essential to ensure that citizens’ rights are not compromised,” argues Zhang Linghan, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law.

Beyond China, the AI policing model is gaining traction. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has exported surveillance technology to dozens of nations, including Ecuador, Serbia, and Zimbabwe, but also France and the UK. For Europeans, then, the prospect of AI-driven robots patrolling their streets feels uncomfortably close.

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At home, the headlong push toward AI-driven policing continues. With advancements in cloud computing and deep learning, the next generation of AI surveillance will be even more precise and efficient—and intrusive. China’s experiment with AI policing is reshaping the future of law enforcement, creating new standards which countries will have to decide to either compete with or face the risk of losing the technological race.

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