Saw some dunktank posts mocking lib social credit system propaganda. Was wondering if someone could explain the actual system. I know all the US propaganda on it is bullshit, just wondering what the actual policy is, mostly so i can tell libs, or better yet potential comrades with questions about China based in weird propaganda they heard.
https://archive.is/G4z4h#selection-800.0-803.0
Fundamentally it is a credit score system. It works like your credit score.
That makes sense. Making something thats basically the same as we have here sound nefarious. Are there any meaningful differences?
Edit:sorry just noticed the link I'll read that lol. Thanks!
Ultimately it's all about debt and finance. This is the "trust" in the system. The west has predictably contorted this into a horrible evil system that measures people's worth in society which uhhhhhhh is also what the western system of credit scoring does. But since that's normalised nobody questions it, and since China's has a different name they can imply that it is not the same.
Really China's mistake here was naming their version something different. If they just called whatever their systems are the same as whatever they're called in the west then there wouldn't be any room to create this kind of propaganda.
It’s a credit system for businesses. It’s for consumers but I think mainly for other businesses to assesses the trustworthiness of individuals who own a business. So if you own some clothing shop known for reselling used clothing as new, you’ll be dinged and be punished. But I believe that only local governments have implemented it, so it’s like a few places have it but westerners extrapolated to Xi watching your every move
No one seems to have mentioned this, but I don't believe that China has really fully adopted this system either. Most of the articles freaking out about it were responding to a simple trial of the idea in Shanghai.
Wired did an article on it back in 2019 that;s far less damning than most western sources. How the West Got China's Social Credit System Wrong | WIRED
The simple answer is that "social credit" is a both a policy framework and broad initiative adopted by the Chinese government aimed at enforcing market regulations, implementing a corporate credit system, increasing institutional credibility, and ultimately becoming a building block1 for the construction of a "harmonious socialist society". It's the evolving result of decades of (usually campaign-style) policies implemented to control and prevent corruption and corporate malfeasance. China's growing domestic consumption market also created the need for a centralized financial credit system.
Scope of social credit
- Businesses
- Individuals
- Government institutions
Examples of corporate SCS mechanisms
- National Credit Information Sharing Platform (NCISP). Operated by the state planning agency, meant to integrate all national/regional corporate regulatory data. Here's the website where you can search for specific entities and whether they have been penalized: https://www.gsxt.gov.cn/index.html. And here's a web portal for more: https://www.creditchina.gov.cn/
- Unified Social Credit Code. Number assigned to corporate entities.
- Blacklists. These are produced by government agencies according to their jurisdiction. These cover a range of violations and infractions. To my knowledge, no national blacklist (or analogue) exists at the present.
- Punishment/reward system. The entity is penalized by agencies connected to the NCISP within their powers. Here's a list of approved punishments (including punishments for individuals).
That should be enough for a basic overview of the current state of SCS. I didn't go over the experimental pilot programs because those have only ever been implemented at a municipal level and it seems that their methods (such as point scoring system) have been rejected by the national government. There is no indication that the national government is interested in tracking the violations of social norms by individuals.
You can find more primary sources on Chinalawtranslate and Stanford's DigiChina.
Like 90% of those punishments are stuff like "restriction on owning and operating a private mining company for a set period of time or life" and "limited access to positions on state planning boards for mining and extractive industry " lol
There's a section with some punishments that cut you off from subsidized transit, but other than that it's an absolute walk in the park compared to American credit scores. Unless you're a rich mine owner who's exploiting workers...
