【Epoch Times, July 13, 2025】Chen Enda from Zhengzhou, Henan, has worked from a software testing project at Ali’s rookie technology data backend, to the e-government platform of Tianque Technology, and then went to the United States to join the democratic movement. He revealed to Epoch Times the dark secrets of China’s data fabrication, academic corruption, and the country’s digital surveillance system.
In an interview with Epoch Times, 36-year-old Chen Enda recalled that he originally worked in a Shanghai factory doing assembly line work until 2015, when, with his family’s connections, he was introduced to a software testing company in Beijing. “I didn’t understand the industry at the time and never thought someone like me could enter the internet industry, feeling like this field was meant for highly educated elites.”
The company he worked for, on the surface, was engaged in software testing, but in reality was a “shell company” with no formal office space. Even the later established “Zhongce Soft Evaluation” lab had no professional team, only assigning tasks through phone calls and WeChat messages. All of Chen Enda’s work was done in the shabby room he rented.
He discovered that testing work was virtually non-existent, with report writing becoming the main task. He also found that state-owned enterprises and universities would fabricate projects to apply for research funds.
Chen Enda stated that the company boss undertook outsourced projects from the “National Information Center Software Testing Center.” The so-called software testing did not require any technical knowledge. He admitted that at the time, he only had one year of vocational school education and had not received formal training. The company even forged a diploma for him to meet project requirements.
His first project was writing a testing report for China Petroleum (Sinopec). Over the following two years, he was responsible for testing work at units such as the National Petition Bureau, Tsinghua University, Beijing Agricultural University, and Ningxia Petition Bureau.
Although nominally carrying out system testing tasks, he was actually just writing reports based on the user manual and requirement documents provided, then having them stamped by the “National Information Center Software Testing Center.”
One of the most memorable cases for Chen Enda was a project at the Agricultural University. “Their software was full of bugs, and there were frequent errors when clicking the mouse. But a Dr. Wang frankly told him that this old software was just renamed and pieced together to apply for research project funds again, with no intention to actually use it.”
Another example was an “unmanned aircraft operating system” at Tsinghua University. Chen Enda only received an operation manual and had never seen a drone nor was able to start the system. He still had to write a “testing report” according to the manual, which was then reviewed and stamped by the National Information Center to serve as the basis for applying for funds.
What shocked Chen Enda the most was when his supervisor urgently demanded he rewrite a report overnight and personally delivered 20,000 RMB in cash to the National Information Center the next day.
“As soon as they saw me coming in, they understood the purpose. Before I even said a word, they took the money, took the USB drive I brought, immediately printed the report, stamped it, and sealed it.” Chen Enda recalled that the report hadn’t even dried yet, and they asked him to “blow on it.”
This cash “expedited” service and distortion in the report production process made him feel absurd. The usual review process took three to five days, but by offering cash and leveraging relationships, it could be completed in one day.
“A dozen pages of reports, without testing, just stamping, this isn’t a testing fee, it’s bribery,” Chen Enda stated.
According to Chen Enda’s description, the key figure in the entire testing business was Professor Chen Li from Beihang University. She was both the external contact person and the main named person in the projects. The boss of the shell company was a student of Professor Chen at Beihang, who after graduating, used his project management experience at the state grid to obtain government resources and, at Chen Li’s suggestion, established “Zhongce Soft Evaluation” to undertake more “official” testing projects.
In order to give the lab “legitimate qualifications,” the boss even bribed the inspectors of the national laboratory, giving each 20,000 RMB, successfully obtaining the CNAS certification. Chen Enda said he was present at the time. “This kind of interconnected and relationship-protected model is almost the norm in the Chinese officialdom.”
As he produced more reports, Chen Enda grew more uneasy.
Chen Enda said, “The people who used the money to buy reports were clearly instructing me to do these things, making it very clear what they wanted. It was obvious that someone like me, without much education and understanding, was being intentionally targeted. It seemed like they wanted to make me a scapegoat, but I didn’t want to take the risk, so I resigned.”
Chen Enda revealed that the boss of the shell company started with a project for the National Information Center in the name of a laboratory with a professor at Beihang University, then specifically set up a company outside the school to help the professor with projects, gradually accessing government resources.
In June 2017, Chen Enda left his software testing position and attended a six-month software development training program.
In May 2018, he joined Rookie Network Technology, a subsidiary of Alibaba, collecting and organizing user logistics information and selling it to domestic courier companies (such as Sanyou and Yida).
He was surprised to find that the internal system could access a complete set of information such as user purchase records, product details, recipient names, phone numbers, and addresses.
He further pointed out that Alibaba had a CCP party branch internally, and data could be provided to the CCP authorities at any time. “If the government wants to target someone, all this information can be reported immediately, and no one will refuse.”
After leaving Alibaba Rookie Technology at the end of 2019, Chen Enda joined a company in Hangzhou that provided digital government services called Tianque Technology. The company was responsible for the “grid management” system in Zhejiang Province, grouping residents by registration, residence, mobility categories and setting up a list of key individuals of interest, including petitioners and dissenters.
This system could report abnormal behavior in real time, achieving efficient monitoring and early warning purposes, acting like a mobile “digital camera.” The system also integrated internal work flow applications from Alibaba’s “Dingding” and other enterprises to help the government control the approval and actions of grassroots employees.
During the pandemic, Chen Enda’s project team was responsible for interfacing with Alibaba’s health code system, conducting case data statistics and formulating strategies. His colleagues tracked the statistics daily and found discrepancies between the number of infected individuals and the reported new cases. “Clearly, there were new cases every day, but it showed zero.”
Chen Enda said that these data discrepancies repeatedly appeared during data comparisons and became a focal point of discussion among colleagues in the work group.
He believes that data falsification is an extension of the CCP’s stability maintenance policy. He mentioned the 2022 incident of a rural bank crisis in Henan, where depositors from Xuchang protested in Zhengzhou, only to be subjected to targeted restrictions on their freedom of movement by the government. This precise persecution tactic directed at individuals was described by him as a “digital Cultural Revolution.”
Since 2016, the CCP has been promoting digital currency (digital wallets), upgraded to launch digital identity cards in 2023, officially named “National Network Identity Authentication.” It currently covers 17 provinces in China and is integrated with 67 commonly used applications such as WeChat, Taobao, Xiaohongshu, China Railway 12306, State Council and local government platforms.
He warned that once digital identity cards are mandatory on all platforms, “If you end up on the CCP’s ‘blacklist,’ they won’t need to spend money on building concentration camps or using police to arrest you. Just by sitting in the office and clicking a mouse, they can cut off your digital identity, depriving you of all freedoms and social rights.”
“Your life will instantly plunge into darkness, unable to work, shop, take public transportation, or receive medical treatment.”
“Even though you are alive, in this era of information technology, it is akin to being dead,” Chen Enda said.
During the pandemic, due to his critical stance on the control policies, believing that the health code exacerbated social disasters (such as starvation, inability to seek medical treatment), Chen Enda reported to the leadership at Tianque Technology that this was “aiding the wicked.” As a result, the company deemed his political views incorrect, kicked him out of the project team, and marginalized him long term, ultimately firing him in July 2020.
In 2023, after arriving in the United States, Chen Enda joined the Chinese Democratic Party, participating in the production of anti-CCP dramas, attracting attention from domestic authorities.
On July 3, 2025, the CCP’s Public Security Bureau called his parents demanding personal information and address, even going to their home to search. Similarly, family members of the other three individuals who participated in the filming with Chen Enda faced similar situations.
“The CCP uses intimidation on family members to silence us, but we won’t bend. As long as we continue to speak out, keep speaking out, and gain attention from the international free world, creating public opinion pressure, only then will they be afraid, and true protection of family will be possible.”
Chen Enda said that when he was in China, he was afraid and dared not publicly criticize the government, only making veiled comments online. But after he climbed over the wall to learn about the Tiananmen Square incident, the Cultural Revolution, and organ harvesting, he decided not to remain silent.
“I’d rather die on the road for freedom than live in lies and fear. We will persist in this battle.”