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Based on 14 months of field research inside the contact tracing system, combined with historical sociology of modern Chinese policing, I propose a model of the \u201clabeling culture\u201d which situates the historically distinctive aspects of the way Chinese police constructs risky subjects within more general theorization of contemporary governmentality. I argue that the mode of labeling culture helped the institutional structure of the Chinese bureaucracy adapt to changing circumstances and absorb novel technologies into its established systems of policing and surveillance, while ensuring that human discretion would continue to play a guiding role. 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