The Gate

This article was originally written by: Ryan Leung

In Chinese society, people often struggle with trust, and fear that they are being scammed or betrayed in some way or another. China announced in 2014 that it would be implementing a social credit system by 2020, which is designed to calm those fears by keeping a public record of individual citizen’s overall trustworthiness. The official reason for creating the system is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.” The social credit system will work toward a society built on trust through the collection of massive amounts of data on all Chinese citizens, and the assignment of a score based on individual citizen’s behavior.

Once the system was announced, Western media pounced on it as yet another example of China building an Orwellian or Black Mirror dystopia. Headlines published since the announcement of the system have highlighted all of its obvious negative elements. Fox News quipped, “China bars millions from travel for ‘social credit’ offenses”; other mainstream media outlets, like the New York Post and the Washington Times, posted articles with headlines like “China’s new ‘social credit system’ is a dystopian nightmare,” and “’Social credit score’: China set to roll out ‘Orwellian’ mass surveillance tool.” Vice President Mike Pence described it as “an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life,” reflecting the dominant themes of articles like these. 

Western media focuses on the social credit system as the greatest example of the Chinese dystopia, but it tends to avoid considering the system from inside a Chinese perspective. In other words, it criticizes the system from an established perspective of contempt for China. In fact, the social credit system has the potential to make Chinese society and the Chinese government’s practices, nondemocratic and illiberal as they are, more transparent. Most Chinese citizens support the social credit system for its potential to create transparency and trustworthiness in an otherwise authoritarian and unfree societal setup.

Explaining the System

The social credit system is similar to financial credit systems in America, but it generates its scores on a much larger scale. In addition to assessing financial behaviors, such as paying bills, court payments, or rent, the social credit system also considers one’s overall behavior as a contributing member of society. These factors of societal contribution can include a multitude of behaviors, like jaywalking, playing music too loud on the train, playing too many video games, and having wildly excessive spending habits. Most of these behaviors were already punishable in China, through fines and various other means. The credit system is intended to streamline punishments for these behaviors.

The social credit system takes all known behavior and actions into consideration, and then it generates a score for every Chinese individual. The social credit score typically ranges from 350 to 950. Having a low social credit score results in being blacklisted, which can affect one’s ability to take out loans or lead to higher interest rates, like a low financial credit score. Individuals with low social credit scores can also lose several rights, like the ability to purchase and consume high-end products. Blacklisted individuals are barred from buying tickets for high-speed trains and airplanes, taking out loans, and buying property.

Perhaps the most costly implication of the blacklist is its publicity. The identities of people on the blacklist would theoretically be advertised on electronic billboards, which are common in major cities. These electronic billboards can display photos of people who live in the area and who are on the blacklist. Anyone can see themselves on the blacklist, which impacts social life. Neighbors, friends, and even family members may not want to associate with somebody on the blacklist. Being blacklisted is not permanent, though, as the Chinese government reserves the right to remove someone from it. Once someone has paid off their debts, for instance, they can petition to be removed from the blacklist. 

Although removing oneself from the blacklist seems like a straightforward process, it does not have a high success rate so far. The blacklist is not the end-all-be-all of the system, though. There are also benefits to having a high social credit score, namely the red list. The red list encompasses discounts on items like movie tickets and phone bills. While a small discount on items does not necessarily outweigh the negatives of being on the blacklist, it does show that there is a positive side to the system. However, weighing the positives and negatives of the system is a somewhat misguided approach to understanding its intended function. The system does not seek to reward those who act trustworthy, but rather to deter people from acting untrustworthy. 

To the Chinese government, those who behave well within the guidelines that it has created are considered to be more trustworthy than those who misbehave. The system’s emphasis on negating bad behavior, more so than promoting good behavior, is a justifiable area for criticism. That being said, most countries today have instituted systems that are predicated on deterrence, rather than on promoting good behavior. In a Western nation like the United States, law-breaking is meant to be deterred by the threat of eventual punishment, be it through fines or imprisonment. The social credit system has a very Orwellian bent to it, but its premise is not too dissimilar from other systems of implicit social deterrence that westerners are familiar with.

The social credit system has not yet been implemented nationally. Most versions of the system exist locally, within cities or towns. Each individual social credit system is different in what is considered bad behavior, and what kinds of punishments one might receive from being on the blacklist. The social credit system has yet to be standardized. It can be challenging to know which rules apply to one’s city, and what one needs to avoid when traveling within China. But the system is supposed to be implemented on a national level by the end of 2020, according to China’s announcement of the program in 2014. Nationalization of the system should clear up some confusion and clarify what behaviors the system wants to decrease in China. Citizens can then act accordingly. 

The System’s Upside

The social credit system can certainly come across as furthering China’s vision of a dystopian society. But China has already created an authoritarian society, one that could be made more transparent through the credit system. The Chinese government already punishes people for the behaviors that the system seeks to restrict. For example, the Chinese government hires thousands of workers to patrol the internet and look for people who criticize the government on social media. Those who are caught can face jail time or fines. In Shenzhen, the government uses facial recognition cameras to catch and publicly shame jaywalkers by displaying their faces on large LED screens around the city.

The punishments that the Chinese government wields are often arbitrary and secretive, even for crimes that are similar in nature. When implemented on a national level, the social credit system could help clarify what the Chinese government considers a punishable offense, and clearly convey an inevitable punishment or consequence if an individual undertakes a particular action. There are obvious faults to the system, like how difficult it may be to escape the blacklist, but the system should help Chinese citizens gain a better understanding of what the Chinese government deems acceptable. 

Western media has narrowly focused on the social credit system’s role in China as part of an Orwellian or Black Mirror-like society. Critics decry how the Chinese government has developed the capacity to define good and bad social behaviors for Chinese citizens. These criticisms are not untrue, but they also do not engage with the real, tangible effects of the system that Chinese citizens will have to adapt toward. Analysis of the social credit system should look at the system within the context of Chinese society, and within the context of the government’s power. Many Chinese citizens are willing to give up privacy if doing so can create a society that is predicated on the importance of trustworthiness. 

The views expressed by these Chinese citizens have undoubtedly been influenced by Chinese media and the Chinese government itself. However, that influence is reflective of prevailing thought in Chinese society that Westerners do not share. Americans have been taught to value their privacy very highly; in modern China, Chinese citizens have been taught to value trustworthiness, and to prioritize efficiency. Again, Western readers can criticize the Chinese government’s authoritarianism as much as they want, and point to the social credit system as an example of it. But doing so without considering the system’s effects within China, as it currently exists, misses the point.

Chinese citizens ultimately believe that the social credit system will do what they have been conditioned to value: sacrifice privacy in exchange for increased social security. Within the towns and cities where the system has been implemented, Chinese citizens are already starting to notice positive changes in their lives. The social credit system is a harsh deterrent to unruly behavior, but the system can help to improve social dynamics in Chinese society. In a more ideal world, China would have no need for such a system. Given China’s authoritarian practices, however, there is reason to be optimistic about the social credit system’s potential to provide more transparency, and to ease the lives of Chinese citizens.

The image featured with this article is used under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal License. The original can be found here.