The West is embracing a Chinese company that surveils Uyghur camps

Hikvision, a video surveillance manufacturer that the Chinese government has a controlling stake in, has been facing criticism and roadblocks to doing business in several countries, including the US where government agencies are banned from purchasing its products.

The pushback appears to have more to do with politics – since Hikvision has been named as the Chinese government’s supplier in the Xinjiang region, which is home to the Uyghur minority – rather than with concerns over mass surveillance per se; the tone in media reports in the West is that the chief problem is the company that sells this tech, rather than its widespread use.