US tech helped fuel China's surveillance empire, Tibetan refugees in Nepal pay the price

An Associated Press investigation shows that U.S.-made technology helped fuel China’s global push to export surveillance systems, a trend now touching hundreds of countries and converging on the lives of Tibetan refugees sheltering in Nepal. The tools are marketed as security upgrades and efficiency boosts, but in places like Kathmandu and along the Nepal-Tibet border they are used to monitor, deter, and sometimes repress dissent. The exposure of these links comes amid China’s stated aim of exporting a complete ecosystem of telecommunications, surveillance, and digital infrastructure to governments with tight budgets and limited capacity for oversight.

Thousands of CCTV cameras from Chinese firms are now deployed in Nepal, perched on street corners and rooftops to observe crowds, traffic, and potential protests. In the Tibetan district near the border, the same systems feed into a centralized command center in Kathmandu that is connected to a wider transnational network. Officials in Kathmandu and Beijing have fostered a security collaboration that includes border aids, training, and equipment, with U.S. cloud providers continuing to play a role in how the data is stored and processed. The AP’s review found that Amazon Web Services, for example, provides cloud services to Chinese giants like Hikvision and Dahua, which are on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List for national security and human-rights concerns, meaning transactions are restricted but not outright prohibited.

The growing footprint of Chinese surveillance technology is often described by observers as digital authoritarianism: affordable, scalable, and capable of turning data and algorithms into a policing force. Analysts say the tools China exports differ in scale and scope from those available to many Western democracies, with a focus on mass capture, facial recognition, and AI-driven tracking that can operate with minimal human input. “China’s set of solutions is designed to spread quickly and be easy to deploy,” said Sheena Greitens, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s exporting the tools and techniques that are very important to authoritarian rule.”

The AP investigation drew on thousands of Nepali government procurement documents, corporate marketing materials, leaked files, and interviews with more than 40 people, including Tibetan refugees, Nepali officials, and engineers from the United States and China. The findings show how a system built to deter crime and manage crowds also serves to scrutinize and limit political dissent, particularly among vulnerable groups with limited legal protections, such as Tibetan refugees who lack formal refugee or citizenship documents in Nepal.

The first wave of cameras appeared in Kathmandu in 2012 as part of a broader “safe city” initiative, but the pace accelerated after a 2013 protest in front of Boudhanath Stupa, a major Tibetan shrine. Night-vision cameras and facial-recognition features were then installed around the site and in other high-traffic zones. A four-story police complex near the Chinese embassy houses operators who monitor feeds in real time and can dispatch patrols or trigger alerts. The system is increasingly capable of tracking a single individual indoors or in a crowded street, and it stores movement patterns to build a historical record of behavior.

A Tibetan cafe owner in Kathmandu described the changed reality in stark terms: “Now you can only be Tibetan in private.” For Tibetans in Nepal, the surveillance regime has intersected with political vulnerability. The Tibetan reception center near the police headquarters sits largely empty, a somber reminder of a once-bustling network of refugees who fled across the Himalayas after China crushed a 1959 uprising. Many Tibetans who do escape face new obstacles: without refugee cards, they can’t open bank accounts, work legally, or travel freely. The fear of being watched has seeped into daily life, and some say the lines between public safety and political surveillance have blurred.

The AP’s reporting traces the arc of a technology transfer that began decades ago when Western firms faced Chinese requirements to share know-how as a condition for market access. Hytera, Uniview, Hikvision, and Dahua—along with other Chinese providers—built a global footprint in policing and surveillance, often bundled with AI-enabled features such as facial recognition and geographic tracking. The relationships were reinforced by joint training, border-control programs, and aid packages that linked security cooperation with economic assistance. In Nepal, Hytera supplied data infrastructure used by the police, while Uniview helped bootstrap the country’s early “safe city” cameras and command-center architectures.

Uniview’s rise came as HP’s former China surveillance unit was carved out and rebranded; the company supplied hardware that Nepal deployed in the field, from street cameras to centralized video management systems. Hikvision and Dahua emerged as the dominant vendors in Nepal’s public sector, with cloud-linked solutions that connect to services like Hik-Connect and HikCentral Connect, which can rely on external cloud providers to store and analyze footage. Some of the equipment is integrated with broader security ecosystems in which the end users—police and government agencies—maintain primary control, while international software firms provide the data-processing backbone.

The interlocking web of American and Chinese technology extends beyond Nepal’s borders. In the 2010s, Western firms conceded at times to China’s demands for access to technology in exchange for access to its vast market. The Snowden disclosures in 2013 intensified this dynamic, leading to a chilling effect on some Western firms’ willingness to resist or challenge Chinese use of their products. Some companies—such as Intel and Nvidia—have said they comply with the laws of where they operate but cannot control how customers end-use their products, a stance that supporters say preserves business while critics say it shifts risk onto vulnerable populations elsewhere. Huawei, for its part, has become a global leader in surveillance systems, including the deployment of extensive networks in cities around the world. Huawei has faced allegations of intellectual-property theft or improper copying in the past, settlements that some cite as evidence of endemic risk in cross-border technology transfer. In Nepal, the company supplied telecom gear and servers for an international airport project and has benefited from collaborations with other global tech firms over the years.

Despite the scrutiny of U.S. policy makers, the flow of technology between American and Chinese firms has slowed in recent years, but the global footprint of Chinese surveillance remains robust. Analysts say the consequences are not limited to foreign policy or economics but extend to the rights and daily lives of people in places where surveillance is woven into the fabric of governance. “China is exporting a set of tools that enable a level of monitoring that many societies would struggle to justify ethically,” said a policy researcher who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “The question is how these tools will be used, and by whom.”

Beyond Kathmandu’s central monitor rooms, the border region near Lo Manthang in Nepal’s Mustang district illustrates the reach of the digital dragnet. A gleaming white observation dome sits across the border in what Chinese authorities call a border-control post. A local Tibetan hotel owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the dome as “the great big eye in the sky,” a symbol of how Nepal has become, in the eyes of many Tibetans, a de facto extension of China’s security apparatus. In 2024, Tinged with caution and physical risk, border authorities conducted arrests and seizures linked to suspected Tibetan smugglers, and the cross-border technology network has become a daily presence in the lives of residents who once enjoyed more porous movement.

The AP investigation also ties Nepal’s iris to a broader U.S.-China tech competition. The network of vendors, contractors, and government buyers has created a supply chain in which some American companies supplied or collaborated with Chinese firms that later expanded their surveillance capabilities around the world. The result is a paradox: U.S. technology helped establish a surveillance architecture, while U.S. policy initiatives and sanctions sought to curb its spreading reach. Critics warn that without robust export controls and stronger end-use monitoring, even well-intentioned technology could enable human-rights abuses across borders.

As the world navigates this digitally surveilled landscape, Tibetan refugees in Nepal face a stark choice between safety and basic rights. With border controls tightening and digital policing expanding, those who stay risk deeper intrusion into private life; those who flee risk detention, extradition, or expulsion at the border. The surveillance systems, built on a foundation of cross-border tech transfer and global supply chains, represent one of the most tangible effects of geopolitics on the everyday lives of people living at the edge of two powerful states. In Nepal’s capital, the eyes of the world’s digital age watch on, while the people most affected bear the consequences in silence.