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China's Second Revolution: Reform after Mao, by Harry Harding. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1987. xii + 369pp. $32.95 hardback, $12.95 paperback. ISBN 0-8157-3462-X and 0-8157-3461-1.Sino-Soviet Relations: Re-examining the Prospects for Normalization, by Thomas G. Hart. Gower, Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney, 1987. xiii + 128pp. £18.50. ISBN 0-566-05449-3.The Chinese Debate About Soviet Socialism, 1978-1985, by Gilbert Rozman. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1987. xi + 396 pp. £28.20. ISBN 0-691-09429-2.The Star Raft: China's Encounter with Africa, by Philip Snow. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1988. xxii + 250 pp., illus. £14.95. ISBN0-2977-9081-1.Communism and Reform in East Asia, edited by David S. G. Goodman. Frank Cass, London, 1988. viii + 158 pp. £16. ISBN 0-7146-3340-2.China: Asia's Next Economic Giant?, by Dwight H. Perkins. University of Washington Press, Seattle & London, 1986. 108 pp. $12.95. ISBN 0-295-96402-2.Breaking the Iron Rice Bowl: Prospects for Socialism in the Chinese Countryside, by Patricia Howard. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, and London, 1988. xvi + 264 pp. $32.50 hardback, $14.95 paperback. ISBN 0-87332-454-4 and 0-87332-471-4.The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985: a self-portrait, by Laszlo Ladany. Foreword by Robert Elegant. C. Hurst, London, 1988. xx + 588 pp. £32.50. ISBN 01-85065-022-5.Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies. Ten Years After: Economic and Political Reform in Post-Mao China, edited by Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 1987. 74pp. ISBN 87-7289-020-7, ISSN 0903-2703.Human Rights in the People's Republic of China, by Yuan-Li Wu, Ta-ling Lee, Franz Michael, Maria Hsia Chang, John F. Copper and A. James Gregor. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1988. xii + 332 pp. £29.95. ISBN 0-8133-7349-1.Hong Kong: A Chinese and International Concern, edited by Jürgen Domes and Yu-ming Shaw. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1988. vii + 279 pp. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 0-8133-7449-9.Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of An American Radical, by Janice R. MacKinnon and Stephen R. MacKinnon. Virago Press, London, 1988. xi + 425 pp., illus. £20. ISBN 0-86068-261-7.Life along the South Manchurian Railway: The Memoirs of Ito Takeo. Translated and with an Introduction by Joshua A. Fogel. xxxi + 241 pp. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 1988. $29.95. ISBN 0-87332-465-X.The Dragon's Teeth: Inside China's Armed Forces, by John Robert Young. Hutchinson, London, 1987. 224 pp., illus. £16.95. ISBN 0-09-170680-7.Peking, by Anthony Grey. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1988. x + 645 pp. £12.95. ISBN 0-297-79204-0.Half of Man is Woman, by Zhang Xianling. Translated by Martha Avery. Viking, London: 1988. xvii + 253 pp. £11.95. ISBN 0-670-81821-6

The Last Emperor,directed by Bernardo BertolucciEmpire of the Sun,directed by Steven SpielbergThe Economic Development of the Pacific Basin: Growth Dynamics, Trade Relations and Emerging Cooperation,by Willy Kraus and Wilfried Lütkenhorst, C. Hurst & Company, London/St. Martin's Press, New York, 1986. x + 180 pp. £17.50. ISBN 1-85065-013-6.The Pacific Century: Economic and Political Consequences of Asian-Pacific Dynamism,by Staffan Burenstam Under. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1986. xii + 154 pp. $18.95 hardback, $7.95 paperback. ISBN 0-8047-1294-8 and 0-8047-1305-7. Economic Growth in Monsoon Asia: A Comparative Survey,by Harry T. Oshima. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1987. xii + 371 pp. ¥6800. ISBN 4-13-047014-0.The Pacific Rim and the Western World: Strategic Economic and Cultural Perspectives,edited by Philip West and Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1987. xiv + 330pp. £32.00 ($29.00) ISBN 0-8133-7338-7.Posuto-haken shisutemu to Nihon no sentaku (The Post-hegemonic System and Japan's Options),by Inoguchi Kuniko. Chikuma Shobo, Tokyo, 1987. xii + 206 pp. Y1, 400. ISBN 4-480-85372-3, C1031.The Political Dynamics of Japan,by Jun-ichi Kyogoku (translated by Nobutaka Ike). University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1987. 239 pp. £18.75 (Y3,800). ISBN 0-86008-409-4.Japan and the Middle East in Alliance Politics,edited by Ronald A. Morse. University Press of America/Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Lanham, Maryland and London, 1986. 124 pp. £21.45 hardback, £10.80 paperback. ISBN 0-8191-5265-X and 0-8191-5266-8.Japan in the Victorian Mind: A study of stereotyped images of a nation 1850-80,by Toshio Yokoyama. Macmillan, London, 1987. xxiv + 233 pp. £27.50. ISBN 0-333-40472-6.As China Sees the World: perceptions of Chinese scholars,edited by Harish Kapur. Francis Pinter, London, 1987. 250 pp. £25.00. ISBN 0-86187-956-2.Behind the Wall: a journey through China,by Colin Thubron. Heinemann, London, 1987. £10.95. 350 pp., ill. ISBN 0-434-77988-1.The Korean War,by Max Hastings. Michael Joseph, London, 1987. 476 pp. £14.95. ISBN 0-7181-2068-X.When the War was Over: the voices of Cambodia's revolution and its people,by Elizabeth Becker. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1986. 502 pp. £14.95 hardback, £6.95 paperback. ISBN 0-671-41787-8 and 0-671-64559-5.Portrait of the Enemy: the other side of the war in Vietnam,by David Chanoff and Doan Van Taoi. I. B. Tauris, London, 1987. 215 pp. £14.95. ISBN 1-85043-059-4.Bitter Victory,by Robert Shaplen. Harper and Row, New York, and London, 1987. vii + 309 pp. £12.95. ($16.96). ISBN 06-015586-8.Laos: Politics, Economics and Society,by Martin Stuart-Fox. Frances Pinter, London, and Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 1986. xxiv + 220 pp. £22.50 hardback, £7.95 paperback. ISBN 0-86187-426-9 and 0-867187-427-7.New Directions in the Social Sciences and Humanities in China,edited by Michael B. Yahuda. Macmillan, London, 1987. 169 pp. 169 pp. £29.50. ISBN 0-333-39433-X.

There is no question that China is ahead of many developed countries in the digitalization of both its society and surveillance systems. It is also clear that the new technologies made possible by this digitalization — the widespread use of smart ID cards, the Great Firewall, the accumulation of Big Data, the social credit system (SCS) and facial recognition — have enhanced the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to rule China, maintain control over society and stay in power indefinitely. While these are not the only systems in place to manage and control Chinese citizens and this is not their sole purpose, these developments have been rightly seen as part of an ambitious Orwellian project to micromanage and microcontrol every aspect of Chinese society. To better comprehend the significance of this new phenomenon, this paper employs Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” metaphor, the perfect mean of surveillance and discipline as well as an “apparatus of power.” Yet, these new technologies have their own limits. In real life there is no perfect Panopticon as no society, even the most controlled one, is a sealed prison. Censorship on the Web is erratic and the full implementation of the SCS is likely to be postponed beyond 2020 for both technical and political reasons, as more Chinese citizens have raised concerns about unchecked data collection and privacy breaches. As a result, China is probably heading toward a somewhat fragmented digitalized society and surveillance system that is more repressive in some localities and more flexible in others, as is the case with the Chinese bureaucracy in general.