The Chinese Social Credit System
This essay was written as part of a lesson series about George Orwell's "1984". The original version included an interview with a student from China. Since he only gave me permission to use it in my school environment but not for publishing it here on my website, I did not include it. It also featured several images which are also not included. Please keep in mind that this eassy was written in October 2021 and some things might be different today as the relations between China and the West and the Social Credit System are ongoing issues/topics and therefore subject to frequent change. Furthermore, the views I pesented in this eassy do not necessarily reflect my views today anymore.
Share this essay
Click here to download the essay as pdf
After Xi Jinping took office as the 7th president of the People's Republic of China in 2013, he became known for being the "strongest Chinese leader since Mao Zedongâ, due to his straightforward appearance on the world stage, his crackdowns on Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, which have long been areas resisting against the central government in Beijing, his aggressive stance on Taiwan and also due to the many projects initiated by him, that are often crowned with success. One of those projects is the implementation of a so-called "Social Credit System", that lets over 200.000.000 surveillance cameras and an advanced AI rate how good of a citizen you are based on what you do in your everyday life and consequently punishes or rewards people with low or high scores. But what does something like this with people who must live under such a system and how is it linked to the Communist Party of China's (referred to as CPC in this comment) ambitions for the future?
Before we can answer this question, we first have to understand the origins of this system and how it even works. 2009 saw the implementation of regional pilot projects and in 2014, eight private companies were given the right to develop a social credit system for national use. In 2018, the Peopleâs Bank of China centralized these projects with participation from the eight companies. However, the CPC missed its aim of implementing a universal social credit system on a national level by 2020 and the project is still stuck in pilot projects on province or city level. One of these cities, actually even the first where this was rolled out, is Rongcheng in the Northern Chinese province of Shandong, where there is a very detailed view into how the system works available. Every citizen will be sorted into a category, depending on how many points you gain or lose. There is the AAA and AA category, the highest of them all, where you will get with 1050 or more points. People in this category will be regarded as the âperfect citizenâ and enjoy special privileges such as better healthcare. Below that comes A+, A and A-, ranging between 960 and 1029 points, providing advantages like priority in education for your kids or lower interest loans. As long as you are in a category that has an âAâ in it, you are good, but now comes B, where it already starts to get a bit troubling. If a citizen is between 850 and 959 points, they will be âlockedâ in there for two years before they have a chance to rank up again and during this time, government officials will visit you from time to time to look after you and tell you how you can improve your score, for instance donating blood or money or doing volunteer work. You will also not be eligible for any privileges people in the A categories enjoy, meaning loans are impossible to get for instance. Now if you drop to B, it is surely not a pleasant experience, but it can get way worse: In C, meaning between 600 and 849 points, the visits by government officials will increase a lot and you will also be put on a list that government officials have insight to and if you ever need the help of an authority- well, good luck then, because no one will process your request if you are on a list of people who are a âthreat to societyâ. Also, you will be locked in C for three years. But all that can, technically, still be rectified after some time, so on C, not everything is lost, contrary to what happens once you drop to D, so between 0-599 points. Once that happens, you are excluded from many aspects of public life. All your titles may be revoked, all state subsidies will be cancelled, you may lose your job and government officials will basically terrorize you with several visits a day. Also, everything you do will be carefully monitored, where you go, what you buy, etc. and you can only rank up again after staying in D for at least five years. But for some people, the worst consequence may be the fact that they are going to be put on a public âlist of shameâ, available to everyone; and in a culture where social reputation means a lot, this may be worse than all the economic consequences combined. The actions you will gain and lose points for cover a wide variety of cases, as laid out in a leaked document from Rongcheng. Returning lost money? +20 points. Talking bad about the government online? -50 points. Helping authorities collect information about people in your neighborhood? +3 points. Getting a speeding ticket? -10 points. Tax evasion? -100 points. You see where this is going. Other pilot projects even give or take points for your online shopping behavior, for instance you will receive points for buying diapers as you are considered more responsible when being a parent and will lose points if you buy too much unhealthy food (I can already see diaper companies running out of stock because people want to farm points). The system rates many things you do (mostly things related to financial or social affairs) and either adds or subtracts points from your score. According to experts, the CPC will definitely use it to silence political dissidents or independent journalists. You could say that if there still was any freedom left in China up to this point, it will surely be gone once this system is being rolled out. There is a test available online where you can answer questions and it will determine what category you would be sorted into (it was created just for fun based on the documents from Rongcheng and is not linked to the Chinese government). It is not that suitable for people who do not live in China, since many questions cannot be answered if you are from another country, but it is still an interesting idea. It is important to keep in mind that there are other systems in use in other cities and provinces as well, such as Sesame Creditâs 350 to 950 points model, but the base idea is always the same: shaping the perfect citizen through monitoring their behavior. Of course, the government officials claim it is building a more honest and better society, but if that is really true is at least questionable.
It would be reasonable to assume that if everyone was directly held accountable for the harm they did to society, no one would dare to behave badly anymore and therefore this system would fulfill its purpose of making people more honest. And on the surface, for instance in crime statistics, this will happen. But at a second glance, the direct opposite may be true. If people have to help others, be polite or participate in community activities because they fear the consequences for not doing so, can you really call this an âhonest societyâ? If you always have to pretend to like everything and everyone and always have to be polite, you are exhausting yourself, because no one is perfect and therefore we cannot always act as if we were. I can imagine that the stress that bottles up from always being pretentious will then be released at home, the only place without surveillance (yet), creating dysfunctional family environments. Also, the trust between citizens will surely be destroyed if you always have to be afraid that your neighbor, your colleague or even a family member might be a government spy and report you. A telling argument in support of this viewpoint is that a similar development could be seen in the former socialist countries such as the GDR (German Democratic Republic) or the Soviet Union and also of course in China itself, since it already is a socialist country; the implementation of the social credit system is only going to make it worse to a point where absolutely no one can be trusted anymore. Supporters of the SCS might also argue that it will help knowing what kind of a person you are before you even met them, which admittedly sounds like a dream; no more fake friends, no more cheating in relationships, etc. BUT: Can you trust a government like the CPC with a task like that? They rate you by their standards, which are mostly not objective. Sure, some are, for instance if someone committed a crime. But does it really make someone a worse person if they criticize the government? Or get a speeding ticket? Or spend an entire weekend playing videogames? I do not think so. People with low scores will certainly be stigmatized and even if they could rank up again technically, that will be almost impossible to achieve. Imagine someone dropped to category C. No one will want to have anything to do with them anymore, because they are a âbad citizenâ. So how is this person supposed to gain points then, since this all this system does is rate human interaction? It is also going to worsen social inequality, since you can gain points by donating money. A rich person could just pay themselves out of that situation, a poor person not. How is that fair? Equality in this system does not exist even on paper, it almost seems as if they do not even try to hide the unfair conditions (to be fair, the amount of points one can receive for donating money are limited per year, but it is still unfair). So even if technically the same rules apply for everyone, the starting conditions are not the same and this is clearly a false understanding of equality.
So, if there are that many downsides, there must be a lot of resistance against this system right? Paradoxical as it may seem, many people signed up to participate in this program that is (as of now) voluntarily. It seems as if many people believe the CPCâs claims of the advantages that it will bring. There are three key reasons why this is the case: Firstly, the Chinese people generally trust the CPC and see them as the saviors who lifted the country out of poverty in the 80s and 90s. Secondly, many people are just afraid of the consequences it might bring if they do not comply with the orders or wishes of the party and therefore do not dare to resist. The third reason lies within Chinese culture, which always put a lot of emphasis on societal stability and security. The Chinese believe that everyone needs to be the best version of themselves so that society as a whole can be perfect. This raises the question of whether a country like China even needs a social credit system to achieve these goals, if people are already raised according to these principles. A quick look at Chinaâs neighbors tells us: Probably not. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have cultures and societies similar to the Chinese (since they all were heavily influenced by Confucianism), that are built on honesty, hard-working and respect, and they achieve all that without constant surveillance and are liberal democracies at the same time.
How does this real-life dystopia compare to the dystopia, â1984â? Is this really âbig brother out of controlâ as Rachel Botsman wrote in her article âBig data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizensâ, published on October 21st, 2017 on wired.co.uk? For the most part, yes. The parallels are immediately obvious: an authoritarian government constantly surveilling its entire population, the silencing of political opponents, being considered a better citizen the more patriotic and compliant with government policies you are (even if it is not linked to a certain score in 1984) and a vast difference between social classes from which it is incredibly hard to rank up. In 1984, the highest class, the âInner Partyâ, enjoys privileges such as not having telescreens in their rooms or access to rare goods. On the other hand, the âOuter Partyâ lives a life in poverty and under 24/7 surveillance and it is incredibly hard to become an Inner Party member. And the CPC has, just like the INGSOC party, a tendency towards altering and censoring history in their favor, Tiananmen Square being the keyword here. The CPC already succeeded in erasing this incident from public debate, by deliberately excluding it from textbooks, paying people to spread misinformation on social media or deleting posts and comments, so that no one who was not alive back then has any idea about it, as this video shows: https://youtu.be/hooL98OwlMM. Soon, when the people who witnessed it are gone, no one will have any idea what happened on June 4th, 1989. That is not to say that China is an exact copy of Oceania, since many aspects in 1984 are clearly an exaggeration, but the parallels are striking and horrifying.
Before I come to a conclusion, I would like to have a quick look at how the SCS is linked to the âChinese dreamâ of the CPC. It is only a piece of the puzzle, only part of the plan the party has for China and the entire world. The world has long slept on China, no one has taken the threat it poses seriously and too many were blinded by the enormous amount of money they could make. And China knew that. They deliberately kept quiet until they grew strong enough so that no one could stop them anymore because everyone depends on China and because they massively grew their military. And that was the case in the 2010s, around the time when Xi Jinping took office. Suddenly China was there, pushing its agenda like never before. It is threatening Taiwan on an almost daily basis by intruding on their airspace and waters, it completely crushed the democracy in Hong Kong within less than a year (violating the agreement with the UK), it commits cultural genocide in Xinjiang, it buys up African countries, builds a new Silk Road (or âBelt and Road Initiativeâ, as the CPC calls it), and of course, tries to make its own society perfect, or at least what the CPC considers perfect. Besides the Social Credit System, there are also the examples of the limitation of Gaming for minors or the ban of âfeminine-lookingâ men, more or less officially targeting KPOP groups like BTS or ATEEZ, who have become very popular in China.
Now what conclusion can be drawn from all this? There are, admittedly, some promising advantages it might bring, such as more honesty (on a surface level) and a safer environment, but the effects on society are enormous: people always having to be pretentious, social injustice and a new way for the CPC to prosecute political opponents with unmatched efficiency. So speaking personally, I would never want to live under such a system, not under a socialist regime, nor with a Social Credit System. No one should be rated 24/7, it would create an environment of constant exhaust because you could not rest and be yourself for even a second. But do we even have a choice anymore? Are we not already heading towards such a system in the West as well? The big tech companies, just like the Chinese government, collect literally every information about our lives. The average person today is completely transparent, mostly without even knowing they are, because letâs be honest, who reads the terms of service? However, there is a big difference in the way we are transparent and the way Chinese citizens are: Our information is collected and processed by private companies who try to make profit out of it, the Chineseâs information is collected by an authoritarian government, so an entity that holds legal and executive power. In my opinion, this is the approach to this issue we need to pursue: Since we cannot, do not want to and also should not live without the advantages of modern technology, we need to limit the governmentâs power over the digital world. That is not to say that it should have no authority at all, crimes should still be investigated and other laws be enforced as well, because if the Internet becomes a lawless environment, we would be facing the next big problem. And in this context, it is well worth mentioning that here in Europe, the conditions mostly already exist, thanks to laws like the âDSGVOâ. So now that it is clarified what the governmentâs role in all this is, what about the companies? Can they do whatever they want with our data, since they are not a state authority? I do not think they should. Their right to sell the information they collect, should be heavily restricted, controlled and regulated and they should only be allowed to give it to the government if there is a serious reason for that, like a crime. I think if we work towards this concept, we will be on a good middle ground between abandoning modern technology (which would be necessary if you would not want any of your data to be collected) and living under Chinese-like conditions. And we have to talk about this topic, since it affects almost everyone nowadays and the consequences could be disastrous if we are not careful enough. Even if the goals this SCS pursues are admirable and worth striving towards, the consequences it will bring are not worth it and offer no solution to what the CPC is trying to solve. There is the proverb âThe path to hell is paved with good intentionsâ and I think China represents that like no other country. I also find it shocking how accurate George Orwell foreshadowed the future in â1984â and even more shocking to what extend China was able to take this all with modern technology.
Looking at what China is doing, it is very sad and embarrassing that the EU still doesnât really stand up against China. In my opinion, we have to stand with the fellow democracies in East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia) against the constant bullying by China and its aggressive expansion ambitions and should no longer keep quiet for the sake of business. The ruthlessness China has shown in Hong Kong should serve as a warning for the West and underlines the importance of defending democratic values, or else they could be gone in the blink of an eye. At least the US is helping by training with the Japanese military or supporting Australia through the recently formed AUKUS alliance. I hope the EU comes back to its senses and finally starts protecting the values it claims to stand for.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVkWokLqPOg&ab_channel=laowhy86 (Scoring system and examples of scoring; last access 1.10.2021, 9:46 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw&ab_channel=VICENews (effects of the first implementation of the SCS in Rongcheng; last access 1.10.2021, 9:48 pm)
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion (General information; last access 1.10.2021, 10:15 pm)
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/china-turns-to-tech-to-monitor-shame-and-rate-citizens/ (General information; last accesses 1.10.2021, 10:26 pm)
https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/rongcheng-municipal-personal-credit-appraisal-standards/#Table1 (Official Chinese documents that lay out how the scoring works; last access 2.10.2021, 3:27 pm)
https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/rongcheng-social-credit-experience/ (test; last access 2.10.2021, 3:31 pm)
https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/chinas-social-credit-system-speculation-vs-reality/ (The state of the SCS in 2021; last access 2.10.2021, 6:08 pm)
https://youtu.be/hooL98OwlMM (Chinese are confronted with the tank man picture; last access 2.10.2021, 6:56 pm)
https://youtu.be/o4L55fyoCl8 (How the CPC censors anything related to June 4th; last access 2.10.2021, 7:00 pm)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58771369 (China intruding Taiwanese airspace; last access 3.10.2021, 7:09 pm)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58394906 (Chinese law on feminine-looking men; last access 3.10.2021, 7:21 pm)