The complex reality of China’s social credit system: hi-tech dystopian plot or low-key incentive scheme?
- A dozen or so cities throughout the country are test beds for carrot-and-stick programmes to encourage businesses and individuals to comply with existing rules
- The efforts have been roundly condemned overseas as Orwellian but for members of the public, the impact of the systems can vary
Yang Qiuyun’s home in eastern China heaves under a mountain of paper files. They are scattered on top of cabinets, piled on the water dispenser and stacked up on her bed.
The files are filled with forms completed in her neat handwriting, records of the laborious work she carries out as one of 10 “information gatherers” in a village at the forefront of an experiment in social management: China’s social credit system.
Every day, Yang, 52, roams Jiakuang Majia village with a pen and paper in hand, writing down every instance of free labour or other donations her fellow villagers make to the community – two points for Ma Shaojun for taking eight hours to install a new basketball hoop in the village playground; 30 points for Ma Hongyun for donating a 3,000-yuan (US$445) TV screen for the village meeting room; and 10 points each for Ma Shuting and Ma Qiuling who have a son serving in the army in Tibet.
The points are added to the villagers’ personal “credit scores”, which are tied to community welfare programmes. High scorers get more rice, cooking oil and cash rewards from the village committee and are lauded on village bulletin boards as role models.
At the same time, points are deducted for bad behaviour such as littering or neglecting care of elderly parents.
This is what China’s much talked about social credit system looks like on the ground in the countryside of Rongcheng, a sleepy city on the eastern tip of the Shandong peninsula and one of a dozen “model” centres lauded for their success in piloting the programme.