China’s social credit system will not lead to citizens losing access to public services, Beijing says
- Vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission admits that ‘in the past, there were some inappropriate punishment measures for dishonesty’
- Lian Weiliang also denied that there was any mechanism for sharing social credit information with authorities in Hong Kong
China’s controversial social credit system will not result in individuals or companies losing access to public services, a senior government official said.
Lian Weiliang, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s state planner, said that “in the past, there were some inappropriate punishment measures for dishonesty in some regions, which have already been regulated and corrected”.
The system is designed to create negative incentives for “untrustworthy” behaviour, though Lian said the government is working on tweaks that would reward good credit, on top of cheaper access to public services and loans.
He said that a market entity would only be punished if it was included on the blacklist, and that the decision on whether to blacklist a person or a company would go through due process.
