This is a truly chilling development. Honestly, it's so unsettling that when I first read about it I searched the terms online to confirm it with other sources. It was just too unbelievable and I thought it was satire.
But no, it's real!
Here's an excerpt from the first article I read:
"Those, like Dandan, with top “citizen scores” get VIP treatment at hotels and airports, cheap loans and a fast track to the best universities and jobs.
Those at the bottom can be locked out of society and banned from travel, or barred from getting credit or government jobs.
The system will be enforced by the latest in high-tech surveillance systems as China pushes to become the world leader in artificial intelligence.
Surveillance cameras will be equipped with facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking to cast a constant gaze over every citizen.
Smartphone apps will also be used to collect data and monitor online behaviour on a day-to-day basis.
Then, big data from more traditional sources like government records, including educational and medical, state security assessments and financial records, will be fed into individual scores.
Trial social credit systems are now in various stages of development in at least a dozen cities across China....
Who your friends and family are will affect your score. If your best friend or your dad says something negative about the government, you’ll lose points too."
You should read the complete article for even more in depth information, such as what life is like for those who have low scores. Here's just a bit on that:
"People can be blacklisted for transgressions such as smoking on trains, using expired tickets or failing to pay fines, as well as spreading false information or causing trouble on flights, according to statements released by China’s National Development and Reform Commission in March.
Citizens with high credit scores can access better hotels, rental homes and even schools; while those with low credit scores can be temporarily or permanently banned from taking planes or trains, as happened to 6.15 million people in 2017, on the government’s own figures."
Also note that the system is not being resisted by the Chinese, because those with high scores in the trial areas support the system due to the privilege it gives them and their children.
One of the other articles I found was from a paper I read regularly, the Guardian. It wrote on the effects of the system on international investors in China. Here's an excerpt from that Guardian article
"As of 1 January 2018, all companies with a Chinese business licence – a necessity for operating in the country – were brought into the social credit system through the new licence requirement to have an 18-digit “unified social credit code”. Through this business ID number, the Chinese government keeps track of all businesses, reporting transgressions on its National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Hoffman said. The system extends to non-profits, NGOs, trade unions and social organisations after 30 June.
'Companies don’t have a choice but to comply if they want to continue doing business in China,' Hoffman told the Guardian Australia.
Sanctions for companies so far have come in the form of fines, she said, citing the example of the Japanese retailer Muji, which was fined 200,000 yuan in May for labelling on products sold in China that listed Taiwan as a country. The fine cited a violation of PRC advertising law banning activity which damages “the dignity or interests of the state”, but the violation was also recorded on the social credit system’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. This listing can trigger further fines from other state agencies, Hoffman said."
So if you want to acknowledge Taiwan as a separate country from China, or god forbid Tibet! ... you can forget about doing business in China. You will be blocked at every step.
"... the Brookings Institute has reported that businesses that pay tax on time and “abide by government demands” will get better loan conditions and easier access to public tenders; noncompliant businesses will face more difficult business conditions."
I realize this post is a lot of quotes, but honestly I can't find words to describe this atrocity. I really hope I've encouraged you to read both of the articles I've shared with you in their entirety, because I promise that I still haven't covered the extent and impact of this new policy, which they intend to have fully rolled out by 2020.
I don't know what you do with this information. I don't know what I'm going to do with it.
I only know that any thought I'd had that China was just a boogeyman the US government was trying to convince me to fear so that it could manipulate me has now given way to a lack of concern for such ideas.
I don't care what they want me to think. I care about what I see actually happening there.
It concerns me now to think about how China is getting its hooks into the African continent. We who love freedom don't want a government with this severity of Orwellian control increasing its influence anywhere on this planet!
