China’s Extreme Surveillance of the Individual and Implications for Its Military Capabilities
In September 2025, China was accused of stealing brain data from elite athletes for use in accelerating the development of super soldiers—something that at first blush seems like the plot of a James Bond thriller or a Marvel comic.
The data was allegedly collected through FocusCalm neurofeedback headbands, which athletes use to improve focus and performance. FocusCalm is developed by BrainCo, a Harvard-founded startup that later moved operations to China and received funding from organizations tied to China’s military-industrial complex.
This premise is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the comparison between soldiership and peak-performance sports. Sports are not about defense; they are about winning. The image of China’s military taking an interest in peak-performance soldiering paints an image of a military on the offense. And it is a reason to study the issue further.
Minds at War: China’s Pursuit of Military Advantage through Cognitive Science and Biotechnology by Elsa B. Kania looks at how the People’s Liberation Army is harnessing scientific and technological developments to advance its military and economic might.
According to the paper’s author, “The PLA is looking to improve its capacity to leverage academic and commercial developments in the process through China’s national strategy of military-civil fusion. In particular, Chinese innovation is poised to pursue synergies among brain science, artificial intelligence (AI), and biotechnology that may have far-reaching implications for its future military power and aggregate national competitiveness.”
Another, separate issue is that China’s government has long been focused on collecting data about the individual. One may remember past instances of personal wearable device data being exploited for operational purposes, involving locations, not with the individual wearer, per se. But in the case of FocusCalm, the data in question is highly personal.
In an age of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and privacy legislation, where users are empowered to opt out of anonymized tracking of their search engine and smartphone device behaviors, the highly attributable nature of this data makes it a much more invasive exposure of a person if misused or stolen.
The possible exposure of highly personal data about individual peak performers, unfortunately, resonates with the Chinese government’s track record of the obsessive pursuit of data about its own citizens. From social credit scores to facial recognition, the individual and individual behavior are measurable—and measured.
In the hands of an authoritarian regime with long-documented human rights abuses of its citizens, this command of a data landscape about individuals has been a long-standing trend. While China’s government broadcasts the intent to moderate facial recognition, articles such as the one about FocusCalm suggest the regime’s interest has not diminished but has changed.
It diffuses outside China. The U.S. government has barred its agencies from using Huawei, ZTE and other associated communications and surveillance equipment. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated them as national security threats and banned the sale of their equipment. However, despite this, Huawei is still in the United States in 2025 and is poised to grow even stronger.
Huawei is now attempting to surpass NVIDIA in being a semiconductor chip-enabling global powerhouse. Consider that Huawei is now a vector into data centers, not just smartphones. When the use case adapts to greater data stores and AI, what other valuable data about individuals lives in data centers?
Could yesterday’s cyber attacks against hospitals quietly be replaced by other means? Is this data valuable to China’s government? There is certainly value in looking to the commercial market for AI-enabled genomics and its benevolent use cases, from cancer research to nationwide Chinese genomics databases. Whoever owns the most genetic insight owns the gene therapies.
Whether through FocusCalm technology, wearables, smartphones, gaming consoles, CCTV cameras or genomes, China’s government has demonstrated its interest in gathering myriad data to model the individual for AI-enabled use cases. The potential involvement of China’s military in the use of these models is troubling.
Even more troubling, GDPR is less than 10 years old, but the debate is no longer about privacy. It is about weaponization of personal information. Is China winning the cognitive war, if we are no longer aiming for privacy outright?
What do we do now?
Each of us can take steps to fight back. First off, make a conscious choice about where your data is going. Be aware of the potential risks of sharing personal information and be vigilant about privacy settings and data-sharing.
Next, consider the origin of technology products before purchasing them. When we think about China and its weak points, one of its biggest constraints is that its economy is not great; in fact, it’s perilous. They must export or perish. Everything they send out of the door must be marketable, so they don’t win unless we buy it.
Businesses must ask crucial questions about vendor and technology supply chains. For example, if you are a chief information officer of a business that is AI-enabled, this data is in a cloud, and that business is a consumer of technologies in this key AI-enabling chip space where China seeks to compete. Therefore, it’s incumbent to be cognizant of where and how the chips in use are mined, built, packaged and sold.
Our government must continue enforcing trade policies and tariffs targeting surveillance technologies and maintain restrictions on Chinese technology companies. But while these efforts are necessary, they are not sufficient.
Furthermore, we must support domestic technology development to compete with Chinese innovations and invest in non-Chinese algorithms and competitive technologies. As well, supporting strategies to reshore key industries, such as pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and semiconductors, to reduce dependence on Chinese infrastructure are essential.
The United States needs a clear, common operating picture of adversarial activity. Vendor vetting plays a role and has become a frontline in defense and is critical to the future security of free societies.
Foreign ownership, control or influence, must be detected to reinforce our national security defense posture. The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) introduces some of the most far-reaching vendor-vetting requirements in recent history. Chief among them is the Ernst amendment, which mandates stronger safeguards to prevent vendors with undisclosed ties to the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign adversaries from entering the federal supply chain. Within the next year, agencies and contractors must establish validated, end-to-end screening processes or face compliance and mission risks.
Individually and collectively, we need to view our personal data as a critical national security and economic resource, and to be aware of the great lengths that our adversaries are willing to go to use this data for strategic economic, political and potentially military advantage.
We need to embrace the fact that we are at a crucial tipping point, and that the choices we make about data and technology, as individuals, across industry and as a nation, have the power to dictate our fate.
Jessica Lewis McFate is vice president director of Intelligence Operations at Babel Street and a career intelligence professional, specializing in OSINT for national security. At the Institute for the Study of War, her research won acclaim for forecasting the rise of ISIS. She has authored over 50 publications, briefed top U.S. government agencies, and testified before Congress. A West Point graduate, she served as a U.S. Army officer with 34 months of deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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