China

Population: 1,468,612,972 (as of 2017)

GDP: 53,330,600 Million Yuan

Chairman:
Lam Ting Chang

Minister of Public Security:
Li Kwok Nang

Over the last 20 years China has remained one of the most stable political powers in the world, remain just below the USA in terms of wealth. Partialy shielded from the effects of economic depression in other contries by their strict import and export control, China has tended to benefit heavily from the economic mistides of other nations. Their consistent population growth has kept them as one of the single largest populations of the world, despite attempts to control population growth.

In recent years China has been considered an evermore liberal country, this has little to do with their own security policies, which involve spying on the populace and social manipulation as a matter of course, but in large part due to export of their methods oversees. In the early 2010's it became common practice for high ranking security advisors from other countries to meet with the Minister of Public Security, but since then the methods of citizen protection used by other countries has moved ahead of China's own methods.

One of the great puzzles of China's success is the “Gender ratio problem”, despite now having an estimated gender imbalance of 4:3 in favour of males, and as bad as 2:1 among young adults, China has not yet entered the sharp population decline which has been predicted for some time. Despite this, critics still point out that thanks to several decades of mismanaged procreation policies China will soon be facing a massive population shortage when birth rates drop off. At this point China will face the dual problems of an increasingly aged population and no fresh working population to support them.

China has always been careful about the risk the internet poses to its national security, directing all internet traffic between mainland China and the rest of the world through the goverment controlled Golden Shield Project, although more commonly refered to as the “Great Firewall of China” (GFC). All data passing through the GFC is analysed for subversive content by the Council of Data Facilitation (a part of the Ministry of Public Security), who have some of the most advanced information control techniques and technology in the world.

The escalation of information control techniques used by the Chinese goverment has resulted in a strong drive among many to circumvent them. It is believed that this was part of the drive that led to the development of Freenet, although some claim an entirely different source for Freenet's conception.

Macau, previously a special administration region of China, lost its special administration status in 2014, 35 years earlier than originally planned. Because of this Macau is now within the Great Firewall of China, and has greatly reduced civil liberties to those it previously enjoyed. However, Macau still has a thriving black market and information trade for those who know how to access it.

As a special administration region of China (until at least 2047), Hong Kong enjoys a large degree of autonomy including freedom from the GFC, its own currency, legal system, and other independancies. Curiously, its unusual status (and debatably it cold relationship with the mainland) has meant that while the rest of the world has become evermore security conscious, the citizens of Hong Kong have retained a great amount of freedom, especially from state surveillance.