The “people's war” on COVID-19 has brought enforcers in hazmat suits onto the streets of Wuhan, where they're bundling ordinary citizens into vans, giving Han Chinese urbanites a taste of the kind of state violence that is normally reserved for dissidents and troublesome ethnic groups. In this episode, we discuss the changing nature of state violence in China, and how it manifests in the re-education camps of Xinjiang, on the streets of Hong Kong and on demolition sites across rural China.  Is President Xi Jinping's China becoming a thug state?  To address this question, we're joined by Lynette Ong, associate professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and Michael Clarke, associate professor at the National Security College of the Australian National University.