{"id":2847,"date":"2019-12-08T16:16:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-08T16:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/?p=2847"},"modified":"2019-12-08T16:18:38","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T16:18:38","slug":"china-points-for-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/china-points-for-perfection\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Points for Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Credit and Control in China<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\n consequence of new technology has been a vast increase in the extent of\n surveillance of people, whether by the state or private companies. \nCCTV, facial recognition, tracking the use of debit and credit cards, \nhaving access to phone records, cookies and other ways of recording a \nperson\u2019s use of social networks and the rest of the internet: all this \nshows how much information (often using big data and processed by \nartificial intelligence) is held about people. The ways in which this \ninformation can be used vary enormously, but nearly all relate to \ncontrolling behaviour or influencing opinions or making profits. The \nterm \u2018surveillance capitalism\u2019 has been used by some to describe the way\n people are observed and tracked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardly\n anywhere, though, is the extent of information and the degree of \ncontrol greater than in China, where the \u2018social credit\u2019 system is \nwidely used. In a sense this is rather like the idea of credit scores in\n the UK and elsewhere, which provide a numerical statement of how likely\n a person is to repay money they owe. If you have a low score, you will \nprobably find it difficult to borrow money, take out a credit card or \nhave a mortgage; and even if you are able to do these things, you are \nlikely to be charged a higher interest rate. Providing credit scores has\n become an industry in its own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part\n of what happens in China is rather similar, with people being given a \nsocial credit score by various private companies. There are also some \nlocal government schemes which rely on \u2018good deeds\u2019 such as donating to \ncharity or giving blood and on bad ones such as going through a red \nlight, and increase or reduce your score as a result. But there are also\n much grander plans for a system run at national and governmental level,\n though this is not planned to come into existence until some time in \n2020, and it is not even clear if that deadline will be met. A Chinese \nState Council document from 2014 described the social credit system as \n\u2018an important component of the Socialist market economic system and the \nsocial governance system \u2026 its reward and punishment mechanisms are \nincentivizing trustworthiness and restricting untrustworthiness\u2019. \nDespite what is sometimes claimed, though, social credit is not as yet \nan all-pervasive system that intrudes into everyone\u2019s daily life to \nsnoop on what they\u2019ve been up to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\n can be blacklisted in a number of ways. For instance, the journalist \nLiu Hu writes about censorship and government corruption. Apart from \nbeing fined, he was banned from flying and using some train lines, \nwithout being informed in advance. A similar ban on travel by plane or \ntrain affects several million people. It is possible to pay the fine or \nwhatever the court demands in such cases, and so theoretically be \nremoved from any blacklist, but this does not always happen in practice,\n especially as there is little supervision of the Chinese legal system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various\n kinds of infraction, many of them pretty trivial, are covered, such as \nsmoking in a no-smoking part of a train, spending too much time playing \nvideo games, posting fake news, quarrelling with neighbours or walking \nyour dog without a lead. In contrast, being a \u2018good citizen\u2019 can earn \nyou discounts on energy bills and even boost your profile on a dating \nsite. The supposed intention is to combat corruption and fraud, but of \ncourse what is done goes well beyond anything that could be relevant to \nthat. For instance, people\u2019s mobile phone usage is closely tracked. And \nthere are supposedly 200 million surveillance cameras in China, which \ncan snoop on people\u2019s activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The system is part of a much wider move towards greater repression, such\n as those against Uighurs in Xinjiang, Tibetans and the protests in Hong\n Kong. Xi Jinping has removed limits on the terms of office of the \npresident, so could in theory remain in charge for life. Human Rights \nWatch has recently referred to \u2018increasing repression under Xi\u2019s rule\u2019, \nincluding the jailing of journalists, academics, religious teachers, \nprotestors against sexual harassment and others. In addition to keeping \ntabs on individuals, there are also mechanisms for tracking what \ncompanies do, supposedly to cut down on fraud and ensure compliance with\n the law. Overseas companies operating in China may have to conform to \neven more governmental requirements too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall,\n and however much it is fully implemented in the future, the social \ncredit system is designed to keep Chinese workers on the straight and \nnarrow, penalising anyone who steps out of line. Any resistance to the \nrule of the \u2018Communist\u2019 Party and the ruling capitalist class will be \none of many actions that lead to being penalised in one way or another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAUL BENNETT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Socialist Standard December<\/a> 2019 Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit and Control in China One consequence of new technology has been a vast increase in the extent of surveillance of people, whether by the state or private companies. CCTV, facial recognition, tracking the use of debit and credit cards, having access to phone records, cookies and other ways of recording a person\u2019s use of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2847"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2850,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2847\/revisions\/2850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}