<p>China's surveillance system has proliferated over the past two decades, but much remains unknown about it. Many researchers have studied central government surveillance, few have examined the role of local governments from a decentralized perspective. To address this gap, we use local government video surveillance procurement contracts data between 2014 and 2020 from the Chinese government procurement website, and analyze trends in the video surveillance investments of local government. We further consider the possible motivations for expanding video surveillance in localities, and find that directives from superior-level governments, rather than public pressure or public safety incidents, are the primary drivers of variation in procurement of video surveillance technology. We further consider the moderating effect of local leaders’ personal characteristics and find that the age and tenure of the municipal Party secretary all affect the above results. These results differ from previous research, which has focused on the central government's planning for video surveillance and less on local implementation.</p>