China First With Citizen RFID Implants

A press release issued by the Chinese government today announced the countrywide implementation of a new high-tech tracking initiative designed to "increase security and prosperity for all citizens of the People's Republic of China." The plan, detailed by Zhou Bo Kai, chief executive of China's Ministry of Public Security, will involve the implantation of long-range, high-frequency RFID devices in every one of China's estimated 1.4 billion citizens over the next 18 months.

RFID, short for radio frequency identification, is a technology that has been used successfully for years, primarily in enterprise supply chain management, to facilitate the tracking of goods and inventory. The Chinese initiative, according to the press release, will be the first known application of the technology toward the tracking and management of democratic citizens.

"We beta-tested glorious devices during 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing," Xu Li Lei, a technology expert with the Ministry of Information Industry in Chongqing, China, said.

"During Olympic Games," Mr. Lei said, "our respected athletes were equipped with first-generation RFID implants in order to ensure safety, security, and social welfare of athletes throughout the great Olympics. The devices help make sure athletes get to correct event at correct time, receive food when needed, and not by mistake enter diplomatic zone of unfriendly foreign nation."

"Our glorious engineers," Mr. Lei continued, "have now very reduced size of original RFID implants from 26.4 kilogram devices implanted in 2008 Olympic team. Ordinary citizens will require no additional extra supplementary limbs or buttocks as the unfortunately unsuccessful athletes did and will be in no great way inconvenienced. Citizens' RFID is gold medal for all citizens of the glorious republic."

The RFID initiative follows on a high-tech identity card project tested in 2007 in the industrial city of Shenzhen, the Shenzhen Residence Card Information Management System Project, which required all citizens of this important economic area to carry chip-imbedded identity card detailing extensive personal information. The card included such information as employment history, marital status, social welfare status, likelihood to engage in armed insurrection, age, number of children, mood, education, turn-offs, landlords' phone numbers, turn-ons, and more. The Ministry of Public Security at the time hailed the pilot project as a "residual success".

"We will now take great progress, first made in Shenzhen then in Beijing, to next level," Mr. Kai said. "Identity card can be lost or stolen. But RFID chip implanted in spine is very hard to gain access to without sharp knife or other cutting tool. After the operation, every citizen of free, democratic Republic of China will feel more secure, and citizens' rights and continued upward progress of our great nation is assured."

Mr. Kai reminded citizens they will be required to report to the RFID charging center in the city at which they are registered as resident every fourteen days for recharging.

According to Mr. Kai, the RFID devices "are not a means for which government act to restrain or have impeded rights of its citizens. Bad human rights is bad for trade, very important to China. They are means for which government assure every citizen can be quickly located, day or night, whether they be gathering in small groups to express support and admiration of Communist party, working every day to strengthen China's economic output, or limiting their reproduction to a single child per family. It is for the freedom, happiness, and prosperity of all citizens."

Following the announcement, several Republican senators said they will shortly organize a fact-finding mission to Chongqing to determine the viability of implementing a similar tracking system in the United States, "for the continued safety and security of all American citizens