In George Orwell’s “1984,” he imagines a world in which citizens are scrutinized everywhere they go, with screens observing every action, and where “the smallest thing could give you away.” That future is now. Not on “Oceana” or even the “Eastasia” of Orwell’s novel, but in China’s surveillance state.

Mindful of the same domestic unrest and undercurrents that prompted the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, China is on a mission to control its population, and to develop the digital tools necessary to do so. Chinese citizens are the targets of ubiquitous surveillance and pervasive influence operations — all in the service of the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to retain political control. Leveraging advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and facial-recognition software, the Chinese Communist Party is well on the way to optimizing the social control of its population.

What was once a patchwork of surveillance is now set to become a matrix.

By 2020, China is working to create a “social credit” system that will tie together ubiquitous video surveillance, economic activity, and expansive government databases. This system will track citizens’ activities and score them on their behavior. (Points are deducted for breaking the law or, in some cases, minor offenses.) According to a recent report, in 2018 alone, Chinese authorities blocked the purchase of plane tickets 17.5 million times and the purchase of rail tickets 5.5 million times because of social credit score blacklists.

Nowhere is China’s modern surveillance state more evident than in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China that is home to a sizable population of Uighurs, a Muslim minority. In Xinjiang, the Chinese government has built an extensive network of camps where it is holding more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities without due process or even suspicion of wrongdoing. The purpose of these camps is officially “counterterrorism,” but in fact the detentions are based on religious and ethnic affiliations.

News reporting from within Xinjiang is nearly nonexistent as authorities block access to the remote province by reporters and human rights groups, but what has been disclosed is deeply disturbing. A recent report from Human Rights Watch documented the sweeping extent of surveillance in Xinjiang, noting that Chinese authorities are collecting everything from the color of an individual’s car, to the apps on their phone, their height, and donations to religious organizations. It has also been reported that the state is surveilling communications at an enormous scale, particularly communications with those outside of China.

By applying advanced artificial intelligence to the mass of data they have collected, Chinese authorities are sweeping up people on the barest suspicion of wrongdoing. Individuals targeted by the authorities have little recourse. Many have been ordered to cut off all communication with family and friends living abroad, prevented from practicing their faith, and compelled to attend extensive political indoctrination sessions extolling the Communist Party.

China’s mass repression of its own population is disturbing in its own right, but it is also a model it is actively seeking to export. The leading Chinese technology firm Huawei, which is closely tied to the Chinese state, is marketing a “safe city” product to developing countries as a tool for crime prevention. Already, 46 countries have purchased a suite of technologies that may have application to crime prevention and public safety, but can easily be used to target political dissidents. And with the application of artificial intelligence, these tools can be used to surveil and repress entire populations.

For current or aspiring autocrats, the lure of these technologies may be too much to resist. China makes these technologies available by providing highly beneficial financing, and by making it clear that unlike the United States or other countries, they are not concerned with how another state uses these capabilities. All told, advances in ubiquitous surveillance, and the creation of huge state-owned databases cataloging individuals’ relationships and behavior, have the potential to fundamentally change global conceptions of privacy.

For decades, the United States has helped set global privacy and civil liberties norms, but as more nations turn to the China for new ways to control their own domestic populations, protections for political dissidents, independent media, and others are at greater risk.

On May 16, the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing on the threat of digital autocracy and how as the leader of the free world, the United States must rise to meet the challenge, in Xinjiang and around the globe. The Trump administration should consider applying targeted sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act to Chinese officials responsible for the repressive policies, restricting their travel and freezing assets.

The United States must demonstrate leadership to counter the rising tide of digital autocracy, making the case for limits on the intrusion of surveillance into ordinary people’s lives. A good place to start making that stand is Xinjiang, where the United States should work with the community of democratic nations to challenge this affront to human rights.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters.