Geoffrey Cain
Jennifer Grossman
The Atlas Society
Geoffrey Cain is an investigative journalist and author of The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future, which reveals the extraordinary intrusiveness and power of the tech surveillance giants and the chilling implications for all our futures. A former correspondent at The Economist and regular commentator in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Foreign Policy, and a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, and Bloomberg, Cain writes about the ways that technology is upending our lives, communities, governments and businesses. His work takes him to the world’s most authoritarian and far-off places, from inside North Korea to the trans-Siberian railway across Russia, from investigations into genocide in Cambodia to experiments in technological surveillance in China.
Watch: How China Perfected the Surveillance State with Geoffrey Cain
Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State
In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on the realities of reporting from some of the world’s most repressive regimes — and on the findings that led to his book, The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
The interview traces Cain’s path through authoritarian states, the personal risks of investigative reporting, and the human consequences of China’s rapidly evolving surveillance apparatus — particularly for the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.
Reporting Under Authoritarian Rule
Cain begins by describing his experiences reporting from countries where surveillance is overt and constant. In North Korea, he explains, journalists and tourists are formally welcomed, yet tightly controlled. Movement is restricted, interactions are staged, and monitoring is relentless. The appearance of openness masks a system designed to prevent unscripted contact with everyday life.
He also reflects on the dangers journalists face even outside the most closed states. In Cambodia, Cain was sensationally accused of being a spy by state-aligned media after reporting on a protest movement in 2017. The accusation was not merely rhetorical: similar charges had already led to the imprisonment of foreign journalists. The episode underscored how quickly reporting can be reframed as criminal activity in authoritarian environments.
Working With Refugees and Protecting Sources
Because direct reporting inside authoritarian states can endanger both journalists and interviewees, Cain explains that much of his work relies on collaboration with refugee communities who have recently fled these regions. These sources often provide firsthand testimony, internal documents, photographs, videos, and digital records that would be impossible to obtain safely on the ground.
This approach carries heavy ethical responsibility. Cain emphasizes the care required to protect anonymity — not only for sources themselves, but for their families who may still be at risk. Obscuring identifying details, destroying sensitive data, and using secure communication methods are not optional precautions but daily necessities.
Life Inside China’s Surveillance State
A central focus of the interview is China’s surveillance system in the Xinjiang region, where Uyghurs live under what Cain describes as a “pre-crime” regime reminiscent of Minority Report. Surveillance is continuous and deeply invasive: in-home cameras, biometric tracking, monitoring of purchases and communications, and compulsory routines enforced by the state.
Artificial intelligence systems analyze this data to predict “future crimes,” leading to detention without any conventional legal process. Uyghurs can be imprisoned not for what they have done, but for what algorithms suggest they might do.
Cain explains that hundreds of detention centers — often referred to as “re-education camps” — have been constructed to house those flagged by the system. Inside, detainees are subjected to intense ideological conditioning aimed at erasing religious belief, cultural identity, and independent thought.
Genocide in the 21st Century
Cain is unequivocal in his assessment: the policies enacted against the Uyghur population amount to genocide. He points to evidence of forced sterilizations, mandatory birth control, family separations, and the systematic destruction of mosques, language, and cultural heritage.
Unlike genocides of the past, this form of repression does not rely primarily on mass public violence. Instead, it operates through psychological control, data-driven compliance, and the slow dismantling of identity — a quieter, more technologically sophisticated form of authoritarianism.
How the System Took Shape
Cain situates the origins of this surveillance regime in the Chinese Communist Party’s longstanding paranoia about internal dissent, combined with a strategic adoption of global counterterrorism language following the U.S. “war on terror” after 2001. Framing Uyghur identity and religious practice as security threats provided ideological cover for the expansion of mass surveillance and detention.
The Social Credit System
The interview also addresses China’s behavioral social credit system, which Cain distinguishes from Western, debt-based credit scores. Rather than focusing on financial risk, the system evaluates trustworthiness: punctuality, public behavior, online speech, and perceived loyalty to the state.
A low score can restrict travel, limit employment opportunities, or exclude individuals from everyday services. Cain notes that the system initially gained public support among some citizens, particularly in a society marked by low interpersonal trust — before its coercive implications became clearer.
A Human Story: Masome
To ground the system’s impact in lived experience, Cain shares the story of Masome, a young Uyghur woman detained after returning home from studying abroad in Turkey. Her imprisonment inside a “re-education” camp illustrates the psychological brutality of the system: relentless indoctrination, isolation, and pressure to surrender independent thought.
Her story, Cain suggests, captures the essence of the dystopia he documents — not as an abstraction, but as a human struggle to retain inner freedom under total surveillance.
Reporting Safely in a Dangerous World
The interview concludes with Cain outlining the security protocols that underpin his work: burner phones and laptops, compartmentalized data, destroyed records, and constant vigilance. These measures are not paranoia, but survival tools — essential for protecting sources and continuing to report on systems designed to operate in secrecy.
