With cameras and crackdowns, another Tiananmen-style movement now 'impossible' in China

BEIJING - Thirty years after the crackdown on Tiananmen protesters, the tanks that lined Beijing's central avenue have been replaced by countless surveillance cameras perched like hawks on lampposts to keep the population in check. The Chinese Communist Party has gone to great lengths to prevent another pro-democracy movement, clamping down on student activists, labor movements and lawyers with the help of high-tech surveillance. But the party has also pushed economic reforms that have made millions of people wealthier -- and less interested in rebelling like the students whose protest ended with hundreds killed on June 4, 1989. Over the past decade, small police booths have been set up block by block across the country to monitor neighborhood disputes, prevent crime, and keep tabs on anyone suspected of disturbing social order. Now China's obsession with artificial intelligence and facial recognition adds another layer of sophistication to this intricate surveillance web, allowing police to pound on the door of any perceived troublemaker, several activists have said.